
Class J&\/l_4~Z£l 

Book !_C_G_ 

Copyright N° 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



Cminfns tye €i)mct) 
of t^e <jfutun 




WILLISTON CHURCH, PORTLAND, ME. 

(In this Church the First Christian Endeavor Society Was Formed) 



Cramtng tl)e Clmrrf) of 
tfje JFutttre 



Auburn Seminary Lectures on Christian Nurture 

ivith Special Reference to the 

Young People s Society of Christian Endeavor 

as a 

Training-School of the Church 



BY 

Rev. FRANCIS E. CLARK, D.D. 

Founder of the Young People's Society of Christian Endeavor. Author of 

"The Children and the Church," " Young People's Prayer-Meetings," 

"The Great Secret," "A New Way Around an Old 

World," Etc., Etc. 



NEW YORK AND LONDON 

FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY 
1902 






Copyright, 1902 
By FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY 



Registered at Stationers' Hall, London 



Printed in the United States of A merica 



Published in March, 1902 



THE LIBRARY QF 

CONGRESS, 
Twl. Coifed Receives 

MAR. 5 1902 

CWRIOHT E*TR> 

CLASS 0U XXc. N». 

1_ h> M- ") *\ 
COPY 3. 



Go 

the Young Pastors of the Country, to the Young 

Men in the Theological Seminaries, and to All who 

are engaged in Practical Christian Work within 

the Church, this volume is inscribed in the 

hope that in it they may find some 

suggestions for Training the 

Church of the Future. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 



Introduction, ......... 

I. The Church of the Future, .... 

II. Methods op Christian Nurture Past and Pres- 
ent, 

III. The Young: People's Society op Christian En- 

deavor as a Training-School of the Church, 

IV. Other Training Classes in the Christian En- 

deavor Society, 

APPENDICES 

I. World-Wide Endeavor, 

II. Model Constitution, 

III. Junior Societies of Christian Endeavor, . 

IV. Christian Endeavor as a World-Wide Move 

MENT, AND ITS CLAIM UPON THE CHURCHES, 

V. A Quiet-Hour Catechism, .... 
VI. Facts about the Tenth Legion of the United 

Society of Christian Endeavor, 
VII. The Macedonian Phalanx, .... 
VIII. The Christian Endeavor Civic Club. . 
IX. The Christian Endeavor Home Circle, 



13 
55 

83 
119 

169 

181 
194 

201 
205 

208 
212 

215 

222 



BY WAY OF INTRODUCTION 



The volume which is herewith presented to the public 
is the result of a suggestion made by the President and 
faculty of Auburn Theological Seminary, that I should 
prepare a course of lectures on Christian Nurture with 
especial reference to the Society of Christian Endeavor 
as a means of Christian training. 

Much has been written on this subject, but never to 
my knowledge has there been a systematic effort to set 
forth the great principles of Christian nurture as they 
are related to the modern young people's movement. 
However imperfectly I have succeeded, this volume is 
an attempt in this direction. Much new light has been 
thrown upon child nature by recent studies in psychol- 
ogy that tend to establish the principles which in a prac- 
tical way have been confirmed by the experience of a 
multitude of busy pastors during the past twenty years. 

These lectures were delivered first at Auburn, then at 
Oberlin, and afterward in an abbreviated form at the 
Congregational Seminary of Chicago, at McCormick 
Seminary of the latter city, and also in the schools of the 
prophets at Andover, Bangor, Newton, Eochester, New 
Brunswick, and in the Union Seminary of New York. 



By Way of Introduction 



They have often been received by faculty and students 
with a favor which I felt was beyond their desert, but 
which, however undeserved, has encouraged me to accept 
the further suggestion of the President of Auburn Semi- 
nary, and prepare them for publication with the hope that 
in their printed form they may still accomplish something 
for the advancement of the Kingdom among the young. 

In the Appendix will be found much information con- 
cerning the Young People's Society of Christian Endeavor 
and its later developments, which has not before been 
brought together within the covers of one book. This 
method of Christian nurture seems to be receiving the re- 
newed and continual blessing of God. Nearly four mil- 
lions of young people are being trained in such schools 
of Applied Christianity, and millions more have gradu- 
ated therefrom. The Society is constantly growing in 
numbers, and I believe in spiritual grace, in America and 
in every other land. It will soon be twenty- one years 
old, and as this society " comes of age " and enters upon 
its years of strength and maturity, I would ask the pray- 
ers of every reader of this book that it may in the years 
to come modestly, efficiently, and more fully than in the 
past, prove a training-school for the Church of the 
Future. Francis E. Clark. 

Boston, Mass., December, 1901 



THE CHURCH OF THE FUTURE 




TRAINING 

THE 

CHURCH OF THE FUTt 



Chapter I 
THE CHTTECH OF THE FUTUBE 

THE PROBLEM BEFORE US — ITS IMPORTANCE AND VALUE — THE 
STANDPOINT OF THE AUTHOR — WHERE IS THE CHURCH OF THE 
FUTURE? — THE IDEA OF CONQUEST AND THE IDEA OF GROWTH — 
NO ANTAGONISM BETWEEN THE TWO — CHRISTIAN NURTURE DOES 
NOT PRECLUDE CHILD CONVERSION— THE IMPORTANCE OF THE 
STUDY — DIFFERENT TYPES OF CONVERSION — AN APPEAL TO PER- 
SONAL EXPERIENCE— ADOLESCENCE A MOST CRITICAL PERIOD — 
" THE APPETITE FOR THE INFINITE " — THE DIFFICULTIES IN 
THE WAY OF CHRISTIAN NURTURE — "THE TYRANNY OF THE 
PUBLIC SCHOOL " — THE VIEW OF THE PSYCHOLOGISTS — OBSTACLES, 
THINGS TO BE OVERCOME — SERMON-STEEPED SAINTS AND SER- 
MON-HARDENED SINNERS — HOW MUCH TIME SHOULD BE GIVEN 
TO CHRISTIAN NURTURE — THE LIFE-INSURANCE SYSTEM OF AVER- 
AGES — TESTIMONIES FROM EMINENT MEN — EARLY CONVERSION OF 
NOTABLE CHRISTIANS — DO EARLY CHURCHGOING HABITS CREATE 
A DISTASTE FOR RELIGION? — THE COLLECTED OPINIONS OF MANY 
REPRESENTATIVE CHRISTIANS — " THE CHILDREN WHOM THOU 
HAST GIVEN ME." 

The great problem before us is the upbuilding of the 
Kingdom of Christ. It is not primarily the advocacy of 
a society or a method or a plan of work. It is not sim- 
ply the Christian nurture of the young, but it is the 

13 



Training the Church of the Future 

Christian nurture of the young with a purpose-^for the 
sake of the Kingdom. 

The subject of our study is as important as the church 
itself, for upon it the future of the church depends. It 
is as essential as the study of theology, of church his- 
tory, of exegesis, for its object and purpose are the very 
same: to find out how, through these studies, one may 
be fitted to extend the Kingdom of Jesus Christ and 
strengthen His church on earth. If the suggestions that 
I make prove of any value, it will not be that I speak 
with eloquence, originality, or authority, but because I 
shall speak from the standpoint of actual practise. I 
shall look at these matters with a pastor's eye, remem- 
bering at every point my own pastoral experience. I 
shall look at them from the standpoint of a worker who 
has spent all his years among* the young, who believes 
in young people, who trusts young people, who expects 
great things from young people, and whose expectations 
have rarely been disappointed. We are to consider 
The Training of the Church of the Future. 

First, then, it is important to know what the Church 
of the Future is and where it is. The answer is obvious. 
The Church of the Future is in the nurseries and school- 
houses, in the colleges and the shops and factories, and 
on the playgrounds of the present. The children and 
youth of to-day are the Church of the Future. There 
are two ways of building up the Kingdom of God : first, 
the method of conquest ; second, the method of growth. 

14 



The Church of the Future 



Sometimes the church has laid stress on one method, 
sometimes on the other. Sometimes it has won its 
victories from without, sometimes from within. Some- 
times emphasis has been put upon revival methods — the 
widespread awakening, the winning of men hardened in 
sin and cased in indifference and worldliness. At other 
times the pendulum has swung to the other extreme, and 
the sole emphasis has been laid upon the method of 
growth ; growth among the children of the church, in the 
households of communicants. But the history of the 
church proves that neither method is sufficient by itself, 
and that neither excludes the other. 

During the last century and the early half of this cen- 
tury in many Protestant churches the emphasis was 
placed upon the idea of conquest. Wide, sweeping re- 
vivals marked the history of the church. Wonderful 
scenes, often attended with extravagant and grotesque 
manifestations, were of frequent occurrence. Sermons 
that stirred men to the very foundations of their being 
were preached by Edwards and his contemporaries. 
Whitefield, Finney, Nettleton, and men of their stamp 
added vast numbers to the church — captives taken, as it 
were, in the stress and storm of war. 

With the advent of Bushnell and his theories, the at- 
tention of the church was called, as never before, to the 
supreme importance of Christian nurture, and it was 
seen that, whatever the conquest might be from without, 
there must also be growth from within if the church was 



15 



Training the Church of the Future 

to hold its own and retain the allegiance and loyalty of 
those who naturally belonged to it. 

With the development of this idea the church naturally 
set itself to devise new and more effective methods of 
winning and training the young for herself. Many 
Sunday-schools became not simply agents for instructing 
the children and youth, but more and more evangelistic 
agencies. Young people's societies were multiplied ; pas- 
tor's classes were formed. This burden was laid ever 
more heavily upon the hearts of pastors and people alike : 
"How shall we win and train our youth before they wan- 
der into the highways of sin f " " How shall we make the 
children of the church, children in the church ? " 

Surely if only one method could be used, either that 
of conquest or growth, the results obtained from growth 
would be vastly greater than the difficult and uncertain 
fruits of conquest over the indifferent or vicious. But 
we are not shut up to one method ; the two are needed, 
each to supplement the other. There will always be 
hardened men, men steeped in sin who have passed be- 
yond the period of Christian nurture and who must be 
won, if they are won at all, by the more apparently 
forceful and startling methods of the evangelist. It has 
been truly said by a modern philosophic writer: "What 
education and discipline do slowly, painfully, and doubt- 
fully in fitting the soul for the common life, is often 
done at a single stride by the fiery enthusiasm of relig- 
ious passion, and the victims of inverted education and 

16 



The Church of the Future 



fatal opportunities are wrenched in an instant from the 
habits of one or even two decades and become most valu- 
able ministers of the common needs. " * 

At the same time, all history proves that at the best 
but a small fraction of men are reached with the gospel 
message after they have passed the period of youth and 
young manhood. At the most the method of conquest 
will win but a comparative few. The great majority,/ 
if they are saved for the church at all, must be saved by 
other methods; by the slow, careful, and often impercep- 
tible processes of Christian growth and training. "The 
Lord hath set up churches, " quaintly says Cotton Mather, 
"only that a few old Christians may keep one another 
warm while they live, and then carry away the church 
with them when they die ? No, but that they might with 
all care nurse still successively another generation of 
subjects to our Lord, that they may stand up in His 
Kingdom when they are gone. " f 

Yet it is not altogether fair thus to separate these two 
methods of building up the Kingdom — growth and con- 
quest. Even in the youngest heart there is conquest, as 
well as growth ; in the oldest and most hardened there 
must be growth after the period of conquest. The dif- 
ference of method seems to be greater than it really is, 
Because it is comparatively easy for the young heart to 
yield to the influence of the Spirit, nevertheless yield it 

* Granger, " The Soul of a Christian. " p. 60, 
f Cotton Mather, "Magnalia," Book I. 



17 



Training the Church of the Future 

must and does before it enters into the Kingdom. Be- 
cause it is so much, easier to bend the twig than the full- 
grown tree, this does not prove that it is not necessary to 
bend the twig. 

Nothing that I may say in regard to Christian nurture 
or child training precludes in my mind the necessity of 
child conversion. The process of conversion may be a 
very gentle and simple one. The child may never know 
the exact moment of the turn in his pathway. But 
some time the turn was made, some time he made the 
choice, and, tho there was no wrench of old habits, 
no upheaval of the old nature, no earthquake shock or 
tornado of passion, his whole future life, if he has indeed 
entered into the Kingdom, proves that there was a choice 
that placed him among the children of God. What a 
fascinating study is this, and what a soul-absorbing task, 
that a pastor shall seek with all the skill and all the re- 
sources and all the holy art of which he is master, to lead 
out the soul of the child and the youth into the large 
place of spiritual vision and activity which God meant 
it to occupy ! As President G. Stanley Hall says in his 
lecture on the religious conquest of the child's mind: 

" Childhood is the very best period of human life. 
Then all human faculties are at their best. It is the 
paradise from which growth is always more or less of a 
fall. ... In all its activities, physiological and psy- 
chical, the child is nearer the type of the species and has 
less of the limitations of the individual. The doors of 

18 



The Church of the Future 



the prison-house have closed upon him far less tightly 
than they have upon us. " 

But not only is this the most interesting period of life 
to deal with, it is one that requires and repays the most 
careful study. It demands the finest appreciation of the 
period we have to work upon and the most careful adap- 
tation of all our means to the supreme end to be accom- 
plished — the end of revealing God and the spiritual 
world to the young soul, and of establishing him in his 
faith in unseen realities. 

" Why should not the care of souls become an art," 
says Professor Coe in his valuable book on " The Spiritual 
Life," " a system of organized and proportioned methods 
based upon definite knowledge of the material to be 
wrought upon, the ends to be obtained, and the means 
and instruments of obtaining them. Such an art would 
require scientific insight into the general organization of 
the mind and especially into the particular characteris- 
tics of the child mind, the youth mind, and the mature 
mind. . . . The religious artist will study when and how 
and how far to administer instruction to the intellect, 
incitement to the feeling, and stimulus to the will. . . . 
Many a revival worker is equipped with texts and ad- 
vice and exhortation, all neatly classified and ready for 
application ; but the investigation of the cases is utterly 
superficial and no connection is ordinarily established 
between the remedy and the difficulty. Of course some 
will say that the method approves itself by its results, 
but the same may be said of patent medicine. After all, 
the question is not merely whether we get results, but, 

19 



Training the Church of the Future 

rather, do we get the best results and the most of 
them ! For this knowledge is as necessary in the cure of 
souls as in the healing of bodies." 

Our ideas concerning conversion have been confused 
sometimes because we have confined ourselves to a single 
type. The story of the conversion of St. Paul dominated 
the Church for hundreds of years, but there was only one 
St. Paul; while there were a multitude in the early 
Church apparently, who came into the Kingdom as did 
Peter and Andrew and James and John ; and a multitude 
more undoubtedly, who, like the young Timothy, could 
trace the beginning of their Christian lives to a grand- 
mother Lois or a mother Eunice. 

In these lectures I shall speak largely of the Timothy 
type of conversion. That there is such a type, well rec- 
ognized and distinct, is shown not only by the Bible, but 
by the history of the Church. It is a happy thing, in- 
deed, and augurs well for the future, that the Church 
has come to recognize this as a normal, healthy, natural 
type, and that she is seeking to build herself up in these 
days quite as much by growth from within as by conquest 
from without. 

That Christian nurture is a God-given way of building 
up the Church, and perhaps the chief way that He has 
ordained, is shown by facts which all religious history 
must recognize: First, the capacity of the young to re- 
ceive Christ into their hearts. I confidently appeal to 
the personal experience of many who read these words to 

20 



The Church of the Future 



verify this statement. Is it not true that as children, 
quite as much as in later years, your hearts were opened 
to divine things'? Did you not hear the still, small 
voice ! Was not the presence of God a very real thing 
when you were eight or ten or twelve years of age? 
Could you not appreciate something of the love of Christ 
and His sacrifice for you ? Did not your little heart burn 
with good impulses to serve Him with all a child's might? 
You may have forgotten these early days, and sometimes 
the experiences may seem very dim and unreal to you, 
but I think there are few Christian men who have not 
some remembrance of these things'? Indeed, I venture to 
say that many of you date your first strivings and resolves 
to be Christians back to tender years, and you will bear 
me witness that divine things were real and substantial 
matters of your every-day life in your earlier childhood. 
I am not speaking of prodigies and precocious hot- 
house human plants, but of every-day, rough-and-ready, 
noisy, natural boys. If you were brought up in a Chris- 
tian home, if you read your Bible and prayed at your 
mother's knee, it was as natural to be a member of the 
family of God as to be a member of your father's house- 
hold. To be sure, there doubtless came a period later 
when companion and school, when passion and fashion 
had their influence, and these early religious aspira- 
tions and thoughts were dimmed and dulled; but the 
earliest experiences to which I refer prove the capacity 
of the child to be a disciple. 

21 



Training the Church of the Future 

The very fact that so large a proportion of present 
church-members turned to God in their early years, 
proves beyond question the capacity of the young heart 
for divine things, and puts a tremendous importance 
upon the matter of youthful training for God. I have 
spoken of the large place of spiritual vision and activity 
which God has prepared for the soul of man. It is pecul- 
iarly interesting to note what modern psychologists have 
demonstrated : that there is an age when God peculiarly 
opens the doors of the spiritual world to the eager soul, 
and that is the period of adolescence with which we in 
these lectures have particularly to do — the period between 
childhood and maturity, between boyhood and manhood, 
between girlhood and womanhood ; the " place where the 
brook and river meet." 

" Adolescence, " says Professor Starbuck, "is one of 
the most critical periods of development, a time when 
the youth should be treated with the utmost delicacy and 
discretion. It is the point toward which all the lines of 
tendency during childhood converge and interplay with 
racial forces to determine the direction of the later de- 
velopment. It is the point at which the blunder may 
prove most fatal, and that likewise in which wisdom and 
discretion can reap the greatest harvest. " * 

Professor Coe in his studies confirms the same view. 

"During the next three or four years [after the age of 
twelve]," he says, "there is to come a transformation of 
the mental as well as of the physical organism, more 

* Starbuck, " Psychology of Religion. " 
22 



The Church of the Future 



profound than any other between birth and death. New 
kinds of sensations and emotions, new modes of thought, 
new attitudes of will, new meanings of life, new problems 
of duty, new kinds of temptation, new mysteries of relig- 
ion, all these come in a flood over the young adolescent. 
... If there be a heavenly Father who yearns for fel- 
lowship with His children, what more effective method 
could there be of satisfying that yearning than to attach 
to adolescence an appetite for the Infinite, the infinitely 
true, beautiful, and good. As a matter of fact such an 
appetite for the Infinite is just the most characteristic 
part of mental adolescence."* 

With these thoughts in mind of the critical nature of 
the period of adolescence and its wonderful possibilities 
for good and ill, we may well emphasize and underscore 
what Professor Coe says on a later page. 

"He who aspires to be a pastor should doubtless aim 
to understand and sympathize with the religious difficul- 
ties of persons of all ages. It would be entirely in place 
to enter a plea for the understanding of childhood or of 
mature life or of old age, but all these are being better 
understood and cared for than the remaining period of 
life, that of adolescence. . . . Stiff-necked and obsti- 
nately self-contained toward all attempts to drive or force 
it, the heart of youth is nevertheless more docile than 
the heart of a child toward one who understands it and 
is willing to impart to it the guidance that it so sorely 
needs. " * 

If the importance of the period of adolescence is so 

*Coe, "The Spiritual Life." 
23 



Training the Church of the Future 

vast to the individual himself, it follows that its impor- 
tance to the church is no less great. "The thoughts of 
youth are long, long thoughts, " and the impressions that 
are made upon the heart in the period of adolescence are 
abiding and stedfast. Then the clay can be molded, 
to be sure, but it "sets" very rapidly, and often forever. 
In this is found the reason for the undoubted fact that 
the stedfastness of young converts is quite as great as 
of those who have come into the church in later years. 
In fact, I believe that of those who have been true to 
their first love the proportion is far larger among the 
converts whose hearts were mastered by love in early 
years. 

How many drunkards who give up their cups in mid- 
dle life remain stedfast to their pledge ? Some say, one 
in a hundred; some say, one in ten; others give more 
cheering figures ; but the proportion of reformed drunk- 
ards who lose their grip and go back to their cups is 
startlingly large. So is the proportion of those persons 
who profess conversion in mature years. Many remain 
stedfast and are shining examples of the grace of God, 
and their later activity is all the more marked because 
of their early indifference ; but among the converts of 
middle and later life are many others who lapse again 
into worldliness, carelessness, and indifference, and 
whose fruit is not the " fruit of the Spirit," but the 
" apples of Sodom." 

"If it was not true of Paul," says Bushnell, "it is yet 

H 



The Church of the Future 



too generally true that one born out of due time will be 
found out of due time more often than he should be 
afterward — unequal, inconsistent with himself, acting 
the old man instead of the new. Having the old habit 
to war with, it is often too strong for him. To make a 
graceful and complete Christian character it needs itself 
to be the habit of existence, not a grape grafted on a 
bramble."* 

What I have already said implies what I believe is ab- 
solutely true, that those who are most active and earnest 
in the church to-day are those who were early converted. 
With many brilliant exceptions to this rule, the rule 
nevertheless holds true. Again and again the test has 
been made, and again and again it has been found that 
the working force of the church to-day received its first 
impulse to the religious life in very early years. Then 
all these facts combined: the capacity of the young 
readily to receive Christ, the fact that the great major- 
ity of those who become Christians at all become so in 
early life, the comparative stedfastness of young Chris- 
tians in mature years, the larger proportion of earnest- 
ness and activity that they show, and the correlative 
fact of the comparative hopelessness of middle age and 
old age, make this problem perhaps the most serious 
and pressing that can engage the attention of Christian 
workers. 

I confess I see few matters of such vast importance as 

*Bushnell, "Christian Nurture." 
25 



Training the Church of the Future 

this within all the range of theologic training; few ques- 
tions so imperative and pressing npon the Church of to- 
day as the question of Christian nurture. The very life 
of the Church depends upon it ; the existence of the in- 
stitutions for which the Church stands. The problem 
whether or not she is to be the saving salt of the future 
generations, or whether they shall drop into decay be- 
cause the salt has lost its savor, depends upon whether 
we shall bring the children to Christ and train them for 
His service ; whether our sons shall grow up as tender 
plants and our daughters be fashioned after the simili- 
tude of a palace. 

We must not suppose, however, because the child na- 
ture is accessible and easily molded that therefore there 
are no obstacles or difficulties in the way, and that 
persistent and earnest effort is not needed. There are 
very serious obstacles to the conversion of the young and 
to their Christian training — difficulties peculiar to youth 
which often require all a loving pastor's care and inge- 
nuity to overcome. The young are peculiarly susceptible 
to the influence of their surroundings. Indifference and 
coldness chill them more quickly than their elders. 
More intuitively than older persons do they distinguish 
between those who are really interested in their welfare 
and those who simulate such an interest for professional 
or other reasons. They are sensitive, too, in an unusual 
degree to the spiritual condition of the home and the 
church. In a warm, active, evangelistic church, the 

26 



The Church of the Future 



young people will keep up with their elders, if they do 
not surpass them in activity. In an indifferent and 
formal church, whatever the wealth lavished upon archi- 
tecture and fittings, however eloquent the preaching or 
tuneful the choir, the young life will not level up to the 
architecture or the eloquence, but will level down to the 
indifference of the Christians in the pews. There is no 
better thermometer to the real spiritual life of a church 
than its young people's work. From the children of the 
home you can judge — not infallibly, but with a great 
degree of certainty — of the character of the home. From 
the children of the church you can judge still more cer- 
tainly of the character of the church. It must be con- 
fessed that the trend of the times is not altogether favor- 
able to the Christian nurture of the young. To be 
" pious" is not "good form" in many communities — in 
our colleges in particular. Many young people hear the 
Bible criticized oftener than they hear its teachings com- 
mended to the conscience. There is a certain kind of 
preaching all too prevalent that feeds the intellect but 
not the heart. This is as fatal to Christian nurture as it 
is to the truest spiritual graces of older people. 

There is also to be reckoned with in the present day an 
overweening pride of intellect, which makes the Chris- 
tian life of young people more difficult than it was fifty 
years ago or even ten years ago. 

The " tyranny of the public school," as it is called, has 
gained and is gaining force, and to speak a word against 

27 



Training the Church of the Future 

its undue intrusion into the family and church life of the 
day almost relegates one to the ranks of uncultured ante- 
diluvians. Mauy young people are so busy with their 
arithmetic or their Latin grammar that they have time 
for but a brief glance at their Bibles, and that often is 
given only on Sunday. It is an unpardonable sin to be 
tardy at school. To be absent a whole day is a crime in 
the minds of many children that ranks with an infraction 
of the decalog, even if it does not take precedence of 
at least the fourth or fifth commandment. This is really 
a question of very serious consideration and worthy of 
prolonged thought, prayer, and discussion — are we not 
purchasing at too great a cost the intellectual equipment, 
such as it is, of the rising generation ? 

Many pareuts take the ground: "My children are in 
school. This is their intellectual harvest-time. Noth- 
ing must be allowed to interfere with their studies — at 
least no religious meetings must interfere, but of course 
the party and the social engagement may be excepted." 
The young people's meeting has often been moved, some- 
times to its detriment, from a week evening to Sunday 
evening, and crowded into a brief and interrupted half- 
hour before the second service. The midweek prayer- 
meeting is out of the question for many young people 
because of their parents' strict prohibition. The second 
service of Sunday keeps them up too late for their les- 
sons on Monday morning, so they are not allowed to at- 
tend it. Or it is thought that the poor little tender blos- 

28 



The Church of the Future 



soms will wilt and die if they are expected to attend two 
or three services on Sunday, tho five hours a day for five 
days in the week, with plenty of home study for the spare 
hours, is not thought too much for the Moloch of pub- 
lic opinion to demand from the schools. I am not speak- 
ing of worldly parents who are utterly indifferent to the 
religious motive. These things you might expect of such. 
But many Christian parents take this same view, and 
practically prevent their children from entering heartily 
into religious work because of their deference to a false 
intellectual standard imposed by the public schools. 
"Wait till they get through school "is often the cry. 
"They can join the young people's society; they can 
serve on some committee; they can do some church 
work, then. 77 A terrible procrastination is this — wait 
till they get through school and the religious sensibility 
is blunted ; the head has outgrown the heart ; the desire 
actively to serve God is dead, and a more fatal obstacle 
than parental indifference has supervened — the disin- 
clination of the young person himself, which is likely to 
be strengthened by the cares and complexities of later 
life! 

I am not looking at this matter from the standpoint 
alone of the religious teacher who desires more time and 
opportunity and leisure for his specialty, for this is the 
ground of the scientific psychologist as well. 

"There is ground," says Professor Coe, "for a suspi- 
cion that the conditions under which a vast majority of 

29 



Training the Church of the Future 

adolescents are placed in our modern light and life tend 
to produce a state of habitual fatigue. Among these 
grounds may be named the tendency to overload the 
common-school and high-school curriculum, the amount 
of social life involving late hours, excitement, and un- 
wholesome eating and drinking permitted to young ado- 
lescents and even expected of them, the multiplicity of 
interests that crowd out simplicity and repose, and finally 
the almost feverish intensity with which American youth 
enter into their too varied occupations. It would scarcely 
be an exaggeration to assert that sixteen-year-old girls 
and eighteen-year-old boys are expected to live two 
lives in one, the life of students and the life of men and 
women of the world. " * 

All this begets indifference or morbidness, and Pro- 
fessor Coe enumerates the following evils as likely to 
come in the train of this intellectual and social dissipa- 
tion: worry, despondency, bad temper, over- sensitive- 
ness, lack of decision in small matters, increased suscep- 
tibility to temptations of appetite and of sex. 

But serious as these difficulties are in the way of 
Christian Nurture, they are not insuperable, or if they 
present a barrier too high to be overcome in the case of 
certain individuals, there are others whom every pastor 
can reach and help, and these will be his joy and pride. 
Besides, the very obstacles in our way should spur us on 
to devise means of overcoming them. No wise method 
of Christian Nurture should be carelessly passed by. No 

*Coe, "The Spiritual Life." 
30 



The Church of the Future 



plan which God has particularly blessed should be dis- 
dained. No effort should be too great which may over- 
come obstacles and accomplish the saving and training 
of the young, which will mean the saving of the Church 
of God from stagnation and decay. 

On a wall of the Institution for the Blind in South 
Boston hangs the favorite motto of Samuel G. Howe, the 
great pioneer patron of the blind, " Obstacles are Things 
to be Overcome." The objects which the Christian min- 
ister has in view in training his young people for Christ 
and the church are surely vast enough, the rewards of 
success, even partial success, are surely inspiring enough 
to lead him to throw himself with whole-hearted enthu- 
siasm against any difficulties, exclaiming, not only in 
the words of Samuel G. Howe, " Obstacles are things to be 
overcome, " but also : "Through Christ I can overcome ob- 
stacles. In His strength I can overcome the indifference 
of worldly parents. In His strength I can combat the 
material and coldly intellectual tendencies of the day. 
In His strength I can kindle and keep alive in many a 
young heart a spark of love for divine things which will 
some day, perhaps, be fanned into a mighty flame of 
devotion. " 

The fruitfulness of this work for the young is beyond 
all comparison. If as much effort, prayer, and agony 
were spent upon winning the children and youth as upon 
winning and edifying the adults, how incomparable 
would be the results'? Think the matter over for a mo- 

31 



Training the Church of the Future 

merit ! What proportion of the average minister's time 
and thought is given to the adults of his congregation 
and how much to the children ! Eeckon up the hours 
spent on the two classes. Two services a Sunday, fifty 
two Sundays in the year, largely for grown people — an 
occasional five-minute sermon for the children, a Chil- 
dren's Sunday once a year, and the minister's sermonic 
duty to them is done. 

But the adults! the sermon-steeped saints who little 
need them, or the sermon-hardened sinners who will not 
hear them, or from whose well -fortified consciences the 
truth will rebound like the cannon balls from the steel 
skin of a monitor — there must be something like a hun- 
dred homilies every year prepared for the edification of 
one class or the unsympathetic criticism of the other ! 

The midweek prayer-meeting is for the adult. To be 
sure the young people are welcomed, and are often be- 
rated if they do not attend, but the meeting has the ma- 
ture Christian in view, and, if the young do participate, 
it often seems like an intrusion into the special pre- 
serves of their elders to which only the boldest are equal. 

The Sabbath-school is largely for the young, but many 

ministers consider it very small concern of theirs. The 

superintendent and the teachers are responsible, and, 

as for the young people's meeting, some ministers — not 

many, I am glad to believe — resent it as an intrusion 

upon their valuable time if they are ever expected to 

attend. 

32 



The Church of the Future 



Here are ten hours of prayer and planning and anxious 
thought given to the adults by many clergymen to one 
given to the young people, when the results of working 
for the young people compared with the results obtained 
in working for the adults are as ten to one. In other 
words, ten times the effort is, as a rule, spent on those 
who are ten times over the least susceptible. 

I do not ask that this schedule be reversed and that ten 
hours be given to the young and one hour to the rest 
of the congregation, tho that division would be more 
reasonable than the proportion now often observed. 
But is it unreasonable to ask that the time and thought 
be equally divided? There are quite as many children 
and youth in our congregations, or there ought to be, as 
there are adults. There are more of them in our homes. 
If a line were drawn at the age of twenty-five in all Prot 
estant parishes in America, more souls would be found 
below than above that line. 

Is it unreasonable to ask, then, that the majority, 
whose needs are as great and whose openness to relig 
ious impression is much greater, should receive at least 
as much of the minister's time and thought as the less 
hopeful minority ! We need to get over the impression 
so widely prevalent that the soul of a grown person is a 
little more valuable than the soul of a child, and that it 
is a greater triumph to win such a soul for the Kingdom. 
How often have I seen in our religious papers a state- 
ment like this: " There has been a revival of religion in 
3 33 



Training the Church of the Future 

the parish of So-and-So, in which fifteen of the twenty 
converts were heads of families." Brother So-and-So 
often words his announcement of an awakening in such 
a way that one would think he was almost ashamed of 
the converts unless they had the distinction of being 
" heads of families." The note of triumph, it seems to 
me, belongs, if it belongs anywhere, in another an- 
nouncement — not, "Twenty converts, most of them 
heads of families," but "Twenty converts, all of them 
children or youth ; all of them to be heads of families ; 
all of them consecrating the freshness and vigor of their 
best years to Christ ; all of them giving, not the fag-end 
of worn-out lives to Christ, but the strength and beauty 
of their youth, as well as the maturity of their manhood 
and womanhood and the ripe mellowness of their old 
age. " 

Consider the life-insurance system of averages. A boy 
of fifteen may expect to have forty-five years yet to live ; 
the man of fifty may expect less than twenty years of 
life. Suppose twenty boys and girls of fifteen are led in 
a time of awakening to decide honestly to live the Chris- 
tian life. The aggregate expectation of these lives is 
nine hundred years — nine hundred years of service and 
influence, nine hundred years of prayer and praise, nine 
hundred years of pure living and noble striving. Almost 
a Methuselah's lifetime of work and worship ! Twenty 
boyhoods and twenty youths and twenty manhoods and 
twenty old men all for Christ and His cause are won 

34 



The Church of the Future 



when the twenty boys are won. Bnt when the twenty 
men in middle life, the much-heralded " heads of fami- 
lies " are counted, their aggregate expectation of life will 
be at the most about four hundred years. They will 
have much less than one-half the time of the boys to 
live. Their boyhood, youth, and young manhood are 
behind them. These years can not be used for Christ, 
and the sere and yellow leaf is not so valuable a gift as 
the bud and blossom, the flower and the fruit. 

Besides, the possibilities of the youthful company are 
vastly greater. Of the man in middle life we say " What 
is he?" Of the old man, "What was he?" Of the 
youth: "What will he be*?" And in that question of 
the future tense are possibilities that set the pulses 
bounding. 

Polycarp was converted at nine years of age, we are 
told; Matthew Henry at eleven; Dr. Isaac Watts at 
nine, Bishop Hall when eleven, and Robert Hall when 
twelve. What parent would take the responsibility of 
keeping out of the visible Kingdom of God a possible 
Matthew Henry or a Robert Hall? What minister 
would not labor years to bring such a saint into the serv- 
ice of our Lord and feel that he was well repaid for his 
efforts? The boy in our family, in our Sunday-school, 
in our Christian Endeavor Society, may be the compeer 
of any one of these saints. At least he has a soul which 
in God's sight is precious enough to demand the supreme 
sacrifice. It is worth our while, our pains, and time to 



35 



Training the Church of the Future 

second Christ's effort to win the children and the youth 
whom He suffered to come unto Him. 

A few years ago I stood in a most fascinating spot, the 
diamond-fields of Kimberley, South Africa. The dia- 
mondiferous blue earth had been taken out of the mines 
in great quantities and spread upon the "floors," so- 
called — fields of many acres in extent — where it should 
disintegrate in the air and sunshine so that the diamonds 
might be more easily extracted. For several months this 
blue earth lies on the fields carefully guarded before it is 
crushed and pulverized and the diamonds taken out. 
The fascination of the spot lies in the fact that every 
clod of clay which you may kick with your foot as you 
walk across the fields may contain a Kohinoor. To be 
sure, not every clod does contain a diamond, not one in a 
hundred of the lumps of earth contains a gem, but any 
lump may be rich in diamonds. 

If it were certain that a brilliant lurked in every piece 
of earth, a walk across the diamond floors of Kimberley 
would indeed be a thrilling experience at least for the 
avaricious man. The children and youth with whom we 
have to deal contain within their natures a gem of great 
price. It is not a possibility; it is a certainty. The 
gem may be dimmed and dulled and lost. It may be 
saved and set in a king's diadem. The very possibility 
of winning such treasures may well cause the pastor's 
heart to glow as he thinks of the young people among 
whom God has called him to work. 

36 



The Church of the Future 



Let us establish in our minds once for all these proposi- 
tions : 

First, very young people are capable of receiving and 
exercising divine grace. 

Second, they are far, far more accessible to this grace 
than they will be in after-life. If this is true it would 
seem that the pastor's supreme duty to care for the 
young need no longer be argued. 

The concurrent testimony of those who have been able 
to judge, those who have had large experience in soul- 
winning, will surely be of weight. Says Dr. Theodore 
L. Cuyler: 

"It is no uncommon thing for children of seven or 
eight years of age to have received more mental cultiva- 
tion than we formerly looked for at twelve or thirteen. 
What is now common was once thought a prodigy in the 
development of mind. ... I will only remark that I 
have known a child at nine years of age better ac- 
quainted with the doctrines of religion than two -thirds 
of our church-members, and that I have been well ac- 
quainted with at least one case of conversion between 
five and six years of age." 

Said Eev. Charles H. Spurgeon : 

"I have, during the last year, received forty or fifty 
children into church-membership. Among those I have 
had at any time to exclude from the church, out of a 
church of twenty-seven hundred members, I have never 
had to exclude a single one who was received whilst 
yet a child. Teachers and superintendents should not 

37 



Training the Church of the Future 

merely believe in the possibility of early conversion, but 
in the frequency of it." 

Said Dr. Stephen H. Tyng: 

"I solemnly believe in the conversion of children. I 
can not say how young they may be brought to make an 
open profession of their faith and love for Christ, but I 
have seen as manifest evidences of the new-birth in chil- 
dren of six and eight years of age as I have ever seen in 
an adult. Shall I turn back those whom God Himself 
hath brought? Shall I refuse those whom God Himself 
has accepted ? " 

A few years ago on two separate occasions I made a 
canvass of some of the best-known Christian men of the 
country, ministers and laymen, in order to determine 
how many of them dated their religious experience to 
their early years, and also to find their opinion in regard 
to the expediency of church-membership for the young. 
The questions asked were : 

First : At what age did you become a Christian « 

Second : At what age did you make a public confes- 
sion of Christ? 

Third : Does your personal opinion incline you to the 
belief that it is well for children about the age of twelve 
years to make a public confession of Christ by uniting 
with His church? 

Of course it was understood that such children gave 
such evidence as a child might be expected to give of 

38 



The Church of the Future 



being Christ's disciple. Let me quote a few of these re- 
plies, for they are most illumining : 

Eev. Charles F. Deems, D.D., LL.D., for so many 
years the popular and beloved pastor of the Church of 
the Strangers, New York, w-rote : 

" In reply to your inquiries, which I think very im- 
portant, it gives me great pleasure to say that if to be- 
come a Christian means giving one's heart to Christ, I 
think I can say that with me that occurred at thirteen 
years of age. I was not fourteen years of age when I 
confessed Christ and publicly became a member of the 
Christian Church. Over this fact I have frequently 
heartfelt and sometimes enthusiastic rejoicing. It now 
seems to me so plain that if I had postponed that sur- 
render a year longer I might never have become a Chris- 
tian, for just after this my father's home was broken 
up and I went off to college. 

"My personal experience leads me to believe that it is 
well for children to make a public confession of Christ 
by uniting with some church just as early as they feel like 
it. I mean by that, that if a child is old enough to love 
the Lord Jesus Christ as his divine Savior, and to ex- 
press a wish to do something to show that love, he is 
old enough to become a member of any church. The 
wretched folly of church discipline of past ages has been 
to assume that an intellectual comprehension of some 
creed was necessary for church-membership. A real 
Christian church is a body of people who love the Lord 
Jesus Christ with a love that passeth knowledge. 

"Moreover, I have made this observation after a min- 
istry of over fifty years. A larger proportion of chil- 

39 



Training the Church of the Future 

dren who have made a confession of Christ by joining a 
church before they were fifteen years old have held out 
faithfully than of all those who have become church- 
members after they were twenty -five. I am very sure 
that no earnest child, however young, who applied for 
membership in the Church of the Strangers would be re- 
fused on the ground of his age. " 

Eev. Abbott E. Kittredge, D.D., Pastor of the Madi- 
son Avenue Eef ormed Church, New York : 

"1. It was, I think, when I was eight years old that I 
gave my heart to the Savior. 

"2. I joined the church when I was seventeen years 
old. It was not considered wise in those days for chil- 
dren to unite with the church, but I believe in my case 
it was a great mistake. I should have been greatly 
helped and comforted had I been as a child a church- 
member. 

"3. Your third question has already been partly an- 
swered. I most certainly think it wise for children who 
give evidence of faith in Christ and a new heart to unite 
with the visible church. In fact, I believe it is our duty 
to receive them, for the Shepherd can surely keep the 
lambs if He can keep the sheep." 

Eev. John Hall, D. D. , LL. D. , the late lamented pas- 
tor of the Fifth - Avenue Presbyterian Church, New 
York: 

"In reply to your inquiries I have to say, with pro- 
found gratitude to God, that I was brought up in the 
closest connection with the church, learned the ' Shorter 
Catechism ' in my home, attended Sabbath -school, and, 

40 



The Church of the Future 



I think, believed in the Savior for years before becom- 
ing a commnnicant. This step I was permitted to take 
at the age of fourteen, after passing through the com- 
municants' class of a faithful pastor. 

" I think where children of intelligence desire to be 
members, they should be received. At the age of twelve 
or thirteen years there is the capacity to understand the 
truth. I receive such, tvhere they are in Christian homes. 
I would not encourage the step in those who are not in 
such homes, at this early age, for this reason: that in 
unfavorable surroundings some such relapse into care- 
lessness, and are then less disposed to come under spiri- 
tual influence. ' Oh, yes, joined the church. I know what 
that is ; I went through all that. ' To avoid the risk of 
such results, in certain cases I favor a time of learning 
and ' probation ' before profession on the part of those 
not blessed with a godly home. " 

Eev. William F. Warren, D.D., President of Boston 
University : 

"To your first question I know not what answer to 
give. Blessed with Christian parents, I was so dedicated 
to God in prayer and Christian nurture from the very 
beginning that I know not what germs of divine life 
were unfolding within me from the first. I can not re- 
member when I began to pray and to take a certain 
pleasure in acts of devotion. Taught, however, that I 
was not a Christian, it seemed to me when I was about 
fifteen years of age an inconsistent thing for me to con- 
tinue to pray. Accordingly, I abandoned the practise, 
and made trial of the barren life of the prodigal son. 
Three years later, I returned with godly sorrow to my 

41 



Training the Church of the Future 

Father's house, whence I hope to go out no more for- 
ever. With wiser pastoral care I doubt whether I 
should ever have gone out at all. 

"I joined the church in my eighteenth year. 

"My personal experience leads me to believe that all 
Christian children should be treated as such, and that 
from the beginning they should be taught that they are 
probationary members of the church, to be received into 
full membership with public recognition and responsibil- 
ities so soon as thoroughly instructed and tested in the 
Christian life. " 

Eev. A. J. Gordon, D.D., then pastor of the Claren- 
don-Street Baptist Church, Boston: 

"1. I was converted at sixteen. 

"2. I was baptized and joined the church at sixteen. 

"3. Later experience has taught me the advisability 
of bringing into the church children of twelve years or 
younger who give proof of conversion." 

James B. Angell, LL.D., President of the University 
of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Mich. : 

"1. At the age of seventeen years,, when a sophomore 
in college. 

"2. At the age of twenty I joined the church, tho my 
profession of faith was public from the first. 

"3. Decidedly yes, if the child has come to a fixed 
purpose to lead a Christian life, without forcing or under 
pressure, and is likely to be under the guidance of dis- 
creet parents or friends. But if the child has formed 
the purpose under some strong pressure of excitement 
and can not rely on the help of wise parents or friends, 

42 



The Church of the Future 



caution should be used. In other words, one needs to 
distinguish between a passing gust of emotion and a 
natural, thoughtful purpose such as a child of twelve 
is often capable of cherishing under favoring circum- 
stances. " 

Eev. S. J. McPherson, D.D., pastor of the Second 
Presbyterian Church, Chicago, 111. : 

"1. I became a Christian and I joined the church at 
the age of fourteen years. 

" My personal experience has convinced me that the 
earlier Christians unite with the church the better it is 
for them and for that training-school of Christ, the 
church. They have less to unlearn, they are less ham- 
pered by consolidated habits, they grow more naturally 
into Christian character, they save the years from waste, 
and their special gifts are far more likely to open 
properly. I regard it as a great misfortune for any 
man to come into the church late rather than early. I 
have rarely known a child who became a Christian and 
a church-member at the age of twelve, who was trained 
in a wise and devoted Christian household, to 'fall away ' 
from his covenant. There is much to be said on the 
matter, and it is, to my mind, wholly on one side. " 

Hon. Franklin Fairbanks, St. Johnsbury, Vt. : 

"1. I can not tell when I became a Christian. I think 
I always was, for I can not remember when I did not love 
my Savior. This I owe to faithful, godly parents. 

"2. I united with the church when I was fourteen 
years old. 

"3. Yes, I do believe that it is well for children, if 

43 



Training the Church of the Future 

Christians, to make a public confession at twelve years 
of age. For thirty years I have been superintendent of 
our Sunday-school, and I have carefully watched Chris- 
tian children who at an early age publicly confessed 
Christ. I give it as my observation that the percentage 
of those who hold on, live exemplary lives, and grow 
strong in Christian character is very much greater with 
children than with those who make confession of faith 
in later years. " 

Eev. Washington Gladden, D.D., pastor of the First 
Congregational Church, Columbus, O. : 

"1. I can not answer. 

u 2. I became a member of the church at the age of 
seventeen. 

"3. Children trained in Christian families ought, iu 
my judgment, to come into the church at the age of 
twelve years, in some cases earlier. I have received a 
large number who were under twelve. There are risks 
attending this early membership, but the risks of permit- 
ting children to grow away from the church are far 
greater. " 

Eev. J. L. Withrow, D.D., pastor of the Park Street 
Church, Boston: 

"1 and 2. I united with the church under thirteen 
years of age. I think I had accepted Christ as my Sa- 
vior years before. 

"3. My experience does lead me to encourage such. 
Of course, if children have no home care, nor special 
church oversight and encouragement, they are more 
likely to fall away than if they were more mature in 

44 



The Church of the Future 



judgment and experience. But taking everything to- 
gether, I would rather trust them at the beginning at 
that age than when older." 

Samuel B. Capen, President American Board Commis- 
sioners Foreign Missions, Boston : 

"1. I do not know certainly. There was a period of 
about two years in my life, when I was between sixteen 
and eighteen years of age, in which I think I would have 
taken a decided position as a Christian if it had been the 
custom of that day, as it is now, for the church to look 
carefully after the boys and expect them to be com- 
mitted. 

u 2. I was eighteen years of age when I united with 
the church. 

"3. Yes, most emphatically. I believe those who 
unite with the church when young and come thereby 
under some responsibility average better than those who 
come later in life. One of my children joined our 
church when nine years of age, and the other at ten. In 
our late war many men were deserters and proved cow- 
ards in various ways, but there is no case on record of a 
'drummer-boy ' who ever ran away." 

President C. F. Thwing, of Adelbert College, once 
addressed a letter similar to the one I have referred to a 
picked company of conspicuously useful, Christian men ; 
they happened to be the corporate members of the Ameri- 
can Board of Commissioners of Foreign Missions. Of the 
one hundred and forty-nine who replied, every one of 
whom was a tower of strength in later life in some 

45 



Training the Church of the Future 

church of Christ, nine-tenths believed that they experi- 
enced conversion before they were twenty, while only 
fourteen were over twenty. All but thirty had joined 
the church before they were twenty. Twenty- nine de- 
clared that they became Christians when "very young," 
or so young that they did not remember when they were 
not Christians. Twenty- one others were younger than 
twelve when they intelligently made the great decision, 
and one hundred and five of the one hundred and forty- 
nine made it before they were eighteen years of age. 

These facts surely are significant ; they would be star- 
tling were they not in a general way so familiar. But so 
is the law of gravitation familiar. Nevertheless it must 
be reckoned with by every intelligent being. The law 
of children in the Kingdom is declared not only by 
Scriptures, but by experience. It was never put so well 
as our Lord put it: " Suffer little childreu to come unto 
me and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of 
heaven. " 

I once made somewhat similar inquiries of the Chris- 
tian business men of Portland, Me. , where I was then a 
pastor. This inquiry, to be sure, related to early church- 
going, but it bears strongly upon the particular point we 
are considering, for this early churchgoing resulted in 
the early formation of Christian character. My ques- 
tions were as follows : 

"Dear Sir: — Desiring to learn if the present decline 
in church attendance, so often complained of, is a re- 

46 



The Church of the Future 



action from Puritanical strictness in the past, as is fre- 
quently alleged, or is due to laxity of parental authority, 
will you be so kind as to tell me — 

"1. Whether in early life you were required to attend 
church regularly? 

"2. If so, did such compulsion render churchgoing 
irksome or repulsive to you? 

"Any other facts from personal experience, or from 
that of others bearing upon this point, will be gratefully 
received. " 

Of the fifty persons to whom I sent these questions, 
forty -five replied. They represented different denomi- 
nations and embraced a large proportion of the promi- 
nent men in the churches. Of these forty-five, three 
were not required to go to church when young, and 
forty-two were. Of these three who were not required 
to go, two went of their own accord. Two others of my 
correspondents make a distinction between being re- 
quired to go and being solemnly and earnestly urged to 
go; that is, between physical and moral compulsion. 
But that kind of compulsion came within the intent of 
my inquiry. Where it is the regularly expected thing 
for children to attend church, as much as to attend 
school, that is the best kind of compulsion. 

Of those forty-five, then, from whom I have received 
answers, forty -two were required to go to church as chil- 
dren; two were not required to go, but nevertheless 
went. 

Forty-two did not consider churchgoing irksome or 

47 



Training the Church of the Future 

repulsive; one did consider it irksome, but not repul- 
sive ; one considered it irksome, but not because of the 
compulsion; and one did not go, and so of course did 
not find church attendance repulsive. 

So you see the testimony of these forty-five represen- 
tative Christian men, obtained without collusion or 
knowledge as to the use to which their testimony would 
be put, almost with unanimity tells that their early 
training required church attendance, and that such at- 
tendance did not drive them away from church even for 
a time. 

In view of these facts, what becomes of the threadbare 
and sickly plea, "I am afraid to require any religious 
duties of my child lest he acquire a distaste for them f " 
Just exactly as sensible is the plea, "I am afraid to re- 
quire any ablutions of my child lest he acquire a distaste 
for a clean face. " 

Now, what do these statistics show us in regard to the 
probable effect of churchgoing upon the boys and girls 
of to-day? 

So far as this testimony goes, we learn that the chances 
of the boys and girls of the present generation becoming 
eminent and useful Christians are as forty-four to one in 
favor of those who attend church, as forty -two to three 
in favor of those who are required to attend ; and the 
chances that they will be repelled and disgusted by such 
requirement are only as one to forty -five. 

Or, to put the matter in still another way, so far as 

48 



The Church of the Future 



these testimonies prove anything, they prove that, of 
those who become particularly eminent and nsef ul in the 
church in mature life, nearly ninety-eight per cent, went 
to church regularly as boys, ninety-four per cent, were 
required to go, and ninety-six per cent were not re- 
pelled from church, even for a little while, by such 
requirement. 

In his fascinating book, "The Psychology of Eelig- 
ion, " from which I have before quoted, Dr. E. D. Star- 
buck, after exhaustive inquiries and elaborate distinc^ 
tions, comes to these conclusions : 

" Conversion does not occur with the same frequency 
at all periods in life. It belongs almost exclusively to the 
years between ten and twenty-five. The number of in- 
stances outside that range appear few and scattered. That 
is, conversion is a distinctively adolescent phenomenon. It 
is a singular fact also that within this period the conver- 
sions do not distribute themselves equally among the 
years. In the rough we may say they begin to occur at 
seven or eight years, and increase in numbers gradually 
to ten or eleven, and then rapidly to sixteen; rapidly 
decline to twenty, and gradually fall away after that and 
become rare after thirty. One may say that if conver- 
sion has not occurred before twenty the chances are 
small that it will ever be experienced. " 

The opinions and research of the psychologist and the 

philosopher confirm the experience of the practical men 

of affairs. The psychologist's words sound almost like 

a knell: "One may say that if conversion has not oc- 

4 49 



Training the Church of the Future 

purred before twenty, the chances are small that it will 
ever be experienced. " * 

What, then, is the conclusion of this whole matter? 
Is it not that the Lord's reiterated command, "Feed 
my lambs, feed my little sheep, " comes to us with re- 
doubled power? Here among the children and youth is 
the choicest garden spot in all the Lord's domain. Why 
spend all the time in reclaiming the desert when the soil 
of youth will yield thirty-fold, sixty-fold, a hundred- 
fold ? Is there any excuse which can avail for not enter- 
ing this field? Is it sufficient for the pastor to say: "I 
am too busy, too preoccupied ; I can not bother myself 
with the children " ? Is study more important ? Is the 
Greek Testament as imperative as the spotless page of 
the child's soul? Is the morning sermon the matter 
of supremest importance? Is the midweek prayer- 
meeting of the church to be elaborately prepared for 
and never missed, while the young people's meeting 
has the go-by? Shall we spend all our time digging in 
the scoriae of the burnt-out emotions of the aged or 
the middle-aged, and forget the virgin gold-mine of 
youthful love and enthusiasm which will so richly re- 
ward our toil? 

Is it sufficient for the pastor to say, "I am not adapted 
to work among children and youths " ? Said to me one 
minister of noble proportions — noble physical propor- 
tions — "I am too big to go to the young people's meeting 

* Starbuck, " The Psychology of Religion. " 
50 



The Church of the Future 



— the little fish don't like to have a whale swim into their 
school ! " 

Perhaps it would have been appropriate to quote to 
this brother some familiar words about becoming as a 
little child before one enters the kingdom of heaven. 
But let us come back once more to the question with 
which our lecture began: What is the ministry for? 
What is all preparatory study for? What is the ulti- 
mate object of the weary delving over Greek and He- 
brew construction? What is the object of the morning 
sermon and the pastoral call and the midweek meeting 
but to establish and build up Christian character % 

If this can best be done in large part in labor for the 
young, then labor for the young becomes one of the chief 
concerns of the true minister, and all other interests, 
important as they are, will give this labor its rightful 
and exalted place. The minister who is too busy or too 
preoccupied to care for the young, is too busy to build 
up his church. The true servant of God will find the 
time and make the opportunity. He will adapt himself 
to this work, however few were his gifts in this direction 
originally. He will gain for himself the young heart 
that he may win the young ; so that at the last, when his 
account is demanded, he may say, "Here am I, Lord, 
and the children whom thou hast given me. " 



51 



METHODS OF CHRISTIAN NURTURE 
PAST AND PRESENT 



Chapter II 



METHODS OF CHRISTIAN NURTURE PAST 
AND PRESENT 

JEWISH METHODS OF RELIGIOUS NURTURE— CHILD LIFE IN THE 
BIBLE — THE VARIETY AND MINUTENESS OF THE NAME FOR 
"CHILD" — JEWISH TRAINING EMINENTLY RELIGIOUS— CHILD LIFE 
IN THE BIBLE A CONSTANT GROWTH— LATER METHODS OF CHRIS- 
TIAN NURTURE — THE HOME PREEMINENT — THE FAMILY NOT THE 
ONLY FORCE THAT MOLDS CHARACTER — GREAT MEN FROM 
CHRISTIAN HOMES — THE JUKES FAMILY AND THE EDWARDS 
FAMILY — THE CHRISTLESS HOME — THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL A CHIEF 
METHOD OF CHRISTIAN NURTURE — UNDESERVED CRITICISM OF 
THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL — FOCUSING THE TRUTH UPON THE HEART 
— THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL AS A HARVEST FD3LD — THE SUNDAY- 
SCHOOL PRAYER - MEETING — THE PASTOR 'S CLASS — THE JUNIOR 
ENDEAVOR SOCIETY — THE USE OF THE CATECHISM — HOW IT CAN 
BE USED IN JUNIOR ENDEAVOR WORK — STUDYING THE CHURCH 
COVENANT AND CREED — THE YOUNG MEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIA- 
TION — BOYS' BRIGADES AND BOYS' CLUBS — MISSION CIRCLES, 
KING'S DAUGHTERS, AND KING'S SONS — BANDS OF MERCY AND 
TEMPERANCE LEGIONS. 

The training of the church of the future has always 
been a matter of concern to the church of the present. 
We thank God for this. Otherwise there would be no 
church of the present. Some generations have been 
much more solicitous than others respecting this train- 
ing, and have used wiser means and used them more per- 
sistently, and of course these generations have reaped the 

55 



Training the Church of the Future 

largest results in numbers and in the character of con- 
verts added to the church. 

No people has been more solicitous on this point of 
religious nurture and training than the Jews of old, and 
the early Christian era seems to have taken up in full 
the interest of the Jews in the training of the youth. 
The Bible, when read in the light of Jewish history and 
customs, becomes a treatise on child nurture which we 
do well to study. I may perhaps be allowed to quote a 
few pages from studies I have already published con- 
cerning child life in the Bible, based in part on Dr. 
Ginsburg's writings on this subject. 

"The Scriptures leave no doubt in the minds of most 
readers in regard to the supreme importance they attach 
to the early and careful religious training of the young. 
The Bible treats child life as it does every other subject, 
in accordance with the customs in vogue at the time it 
was written ; and from its general tenor we have every 
reason to suppose that it approves and supports these 
existing customs. Thus, in order fitly to appreciate the 
child life of the Bible, we must inquire how children 
were regarded, what was their education, and how much 
attention was paid to them by the Jews. When we turn 
to this subject we are surprised to find how large is its 
literature. The very number and variety and minute- 
ness of the names for ' child ' show the importance of 
child life and the close scrutiny with which it was 
watched. There were no less than nine of these names, 
denoting the different stages of the child's history. Be- 
sides the general names for son or daughter, there was 

56 



Christian Nurture Past and Present 

one that meant ' the newly born ' child ; another that 
meant ' the suckling ' ; another still that referred to the 
time just before weaning ; and a fourth that meant the 
weaned child. When he becomes a little older and be- 
gins to go alone with short and tottering steps, he is 
called taph, or ' the quickly stepping one, ' — ' the little 
trotter, ' as we might phrase it. When he becomes still 
older, and is able to help his parents, he is called elem, 
or ' the strong. ' When able to defend and take care of 
himself, he is naar, or ' free ' ; and when he has attained 
his majority and is fit for military service, then he is 
bachur, or ' matured,' — ' the ripe one.' What a watch- 
ful eye do all these names indicate ! By following them 
along we can almost see the development and growth of 
the Jewish youth and maiden. Immediately after the 
birth of the child, it was washed, rubbed with salt, and 
wrapped in swaddling-clothes, and the announcement of 
its birth was hailed with joy, especially if it was a son. 
When the boy was eight days old, he received his name, 
and the rite of circumcision was performed. Twenty - 
two days after this, his father redeemed him by giving 
to the priest thirty shekels of the sanctuary, thus ac- 
knowledging in a most forcible way that he belonged to 
the Lord who gave him. 

"The education of the Jewish children, as we have 
seen, was eminently a religious training. ' If you ask a 
Jew, ' says Josephus, ' concerning any matter concerning 
the law, he can more easily explain it than tell his own 
name ; since we learn it from the first beginning of intel- 
ligence, it is, as it were, graven on our souls. ' ' The 
Jews, ' says Philo, ' look on their laws as revelations 
from God, and are taught them from their earliest in- 

57 



Training the Church of the Future 

fancy ; they bear the image of the law on their souls. ' 
The children were bound to worship God in His sanc- 
tuary ' as soon as they were able, ' was the regulation, 
' with the help of their fathers' hand, to climb the flight 
of steps into the temple courts. ' This was the way Sam- 
uel was trained, and David and John and Timothy ; and 
because of this training they became Samuel and David 
and John and Timothy. It depends upon the parents 
and teachers of to-day what the next generations shall 
be, and it depends upon what they do and teach to-day. 
We have the clean, white, smooth tablets in our hands, 
in the souls of our children ; what shall we write there- 
on, religion or worldliness? 

" Again, child life in the Bible is always represented 
as a constant growth. Over and over again we are told 
the child Samuel grew before the Lord. ' And Samuel 
grew, and the Lord was with him. ' Of John the Bap- 
tist as a child it is said, ' He grew and waxed strong 
in spirit.' And even of our Lord Himself the same 
words are used. We should shrink from using such an 
expression if we had no inspired authority for it. The 
Savior grew, increased in spiritual power ! ' Why, ' we 
should say, ' it is almost blasphemy to speak thus. ' But 
the Bible says so. ' And the child grew and waxed 
strong in spirit, and the grace of God was on him.' 
This idea is universal throughout the Bible. To become 
religious does not make a prodigy of a boy or a girl. It 
does not ripen and mature the character all at once. It 
is not a hot-bed process. The religious child is still a 
child, needing training, instruction, warning, and we 
must not expect or look for anything else. When we 
see the seed sown in fickle April weather springing up 

58 



Christian Nurture Past and Present 

in April and flowering in April and bearing fruit in 
April, when we see saplings grow visibly before our 
eyes, expand in girth and throw out far-reaching roots 
and gigantic limbs in a single season, then may we ex- 
pect to see a child Christian become an old Christian in 
a week ; but till then we need not expect to see any such 
phenomena. Of course a child's ideas of religion are 
crude, of course his knowledge of duty is imperfect, of 
course he falls into childish blunders and errors ; there 
would be no such thing as growth in grace were it other- 
wise. But the acorn contains the oak, the straight, 
branchless sapling is the forerunner of the wide-spread- 
ing shade-tree; in the child Christian's heart lie the 
germs of the aged Christian's experience. 

"I think there is a lesson of vast importance in these 
considerations of child life in the Bible. I beg for it 
careful and prayerful attention, for it is a lesson which 
the church has often neglected to its own sad hurt. It 
is this : It is natural, it is possible, it is desirable, for 
children to grow up into Christian manhood and woman- 
hood without experiencing any sharp and sudden trans- 
ition from an evil life to a good life. Nay, it is not only 
possible and desirable, it is the thing we ought to ex- 
pect; it ought to be as common for young children to be 
born into the kingdom of God as to be born into the 
world. It is possible and natural for children to be con- 
verted at their mother's knee, and never know the time 
when they did not love the Savior. And this should not 
be something rare, occasional, remarkable; a pheuome- 
non, a thing to excite remark, like a comet or a meteor. 
It should be the usual, expected thing that children of 
religious parents should choose to live for the Savior as 

59 



Training the Church of the Future 

early as they are able to make any choice, and should be 
received into the church and receive its nurturing, fos- 
tering care. 

" Search the child biographies of the Bible through 
and see if this idea is not borne out. Was Samuel a 
wise, independent man before he heard God speak his 
name ? Was John the Baptist allowed to sow any wild 
oats before he became a preacher of righteousness? 
Could Timothy better have strengthened the early 
church if he had been a roue in his youth % Did Jesus 
Himself pass through no period of boyhood growth? 
Did even He not require thirty long years of training 
before He called a single disciple to Him? 

"The doctrines of conversion, conviction of sin, and 
regeneration have been monstrously perverted when they 
have been made to teach that in every case, whatever the 
natural disposition or early training, there must be a 
sudden, conscious, awful wrench from old ways of liv- 
ing ; for such a view shuts out all childish conversions, 
and makes a youth of sin indispensable to an old age of 
godliness. This explains many of the terrible revela- 
tions which praying parents have had concerning their 
sons and daughters. They have looked and longed and 
prayed for a sudden, thrilling conversion and experience 
for their children, rather than for a very early, quiet 
turning to God and growth in grace. This sudden, 
thrilling experience never came, but ruin and disgrace 
and heartache have come, because the parents have not 
practically believed in a religious childhood. We be- 
lieve that the Bible teaches that it is not necessary for 
young, innocent children to agonize over their sins, and 
mourn and weep like gray -haired offenders, and then 

60 



Christian Nurture Past and Present 

come out of a terrible darkness into a marvelous light. 
We need not look for any such experience. The dawn 
comes gradually, the lightning with a blinding flash ; but 
the daylight is far more useful than the lightning's glare. 
It depends very largely upon Christian parents and pas- 
tors whether the day-dawn from on high shall come into 
children's lives while they are very young and illuminate 
all their eternity. Let us plan for this, pray for this, 
expect this, and to the children will belong the blessed 
experience of never knowing a time when they were not 
Christians."* 

We must pass from the child life of the Bible to later 
times. The methods of Christian nurture employed in 
the Catholic Church and in the early reformation era we 
may pass over without comment, as these lectures do not 
profess to give a history of the Christian training of 
youth, but to deal largely with some modern methods 
applicable to-day. 

In the post-Reformation period the catechism and the 
confirmation class played a large part in the training of 
children and youth for the service of the King. For the 
most part these instrumentalities did their work admir- 
ably and were well fitted for that day and generation, as 
indeed they are for many churches at the present day. 
It was a sad day for many a church when it gave up 
catechetical instruction. 

Let us come to certain methods of Christian nurture 

which are common at the present time. Foremost and 

* Clark, "Children and the Church." 
61 



Training the Church of the Future 

preeminent among these is and always will be, the in- 
struction in the home. Nothing can ever take the place 
of home training. At the best other methods can only 
supplement and round out the nurture of the home, or 
can make up in some little measure for the defects or 
lack of home training. The mother's knee, the father's 
kindly care, form the very best possible means for the 
Christian nurture of children. And yet we find that, 
even in Christian homes, children sometimes grow up 
wild and reckless or hard and inapproachable to gospel 
truth. Why is this so? Bushnell gives one reason in a 
characteristic sentence : 

"Because," he answers, "many persons, remarkable 
for their piety, are yet very disagreeable persons, and 
that, too, by reason of some very marked defect in their 
religious character. They display just that spirit and 
act in just that manner which is likely to make religion 
odious — the more odious the more urgently they com- 
mend it. Sometimes they appear well to the world one 
remove distant from them, they shine well in their writ- 
ten biography, but one living in their family will know 
what others do not, and, if their children turn out badly, 
will never be at a loss for the reason. " * 

But the defects of cross-grained parents whose theology 
is better than their practise are not the only cause of the 
aberrations of the children of such homes. The family, 
after all, is in our complicated life but one of the forces 

* Bushnell, " Christian Nurture." 
62 



Christian Nurture Past and Present 

that are at work in molding the character of every hoy 
and girl. The influence of nineteen hours in the best 
home on earth can be counteracted by five hours at 
school. The carefully nurtured boy, who for a dozen 
years has been kept from contamination in the home, 
may have a foul seed planted in his heart by a half- 
hour's contact with the rotten life of an unclean boy to 
whom he looks up as his elder and superior. The care- 
ful training of years may be undone, in a measure at 
least, by an evil book or picture, or by a persistent sneer 
at religious things. So there is need of buttressing the 
best home on earth with other influences which shall 
help to mold the character for God. 

Before passing on to speak of these adjuncts of the 
home in Christian training, I would like to take a mo- 
ment to deny the impression prevalent in many quarters 
that an unusual proportion of rakes and ne'er-do-wells 
come out of Christian homes. If the statistics were at 
hand, it would surprise every one to see what a vast pro- 
portion of the world's best and most forceful men and 
women have come out of Christian homes. I believe 
that it would be no exaggeration to say, from the partial 
and incomplete investigations that I have made, that, 
while the proportion of avowedly Christian homes to 
non- Christian is only about one to four, of the men who 
have made their mark in the world, who have won true 
success in the all-round field of human achievement, 
three -fourths of them have come out of Christian homes. 

63 



Training the Church of the Future 

One-fourth of the homes have produced three-fourths of 
the world's best men and women. 

Of course these figures can not be absolutely verified. 
I shall not quarrel with any one who disputes them, but 
when we go through any modern dictionary of biography, 
so far as we can judge of the Christian character of the 
parents, we find that the praying mothers of distin- 
guished sons have been vastly in the majority. 

The statement has been going the rounds of the papers 
of late, that fifty per cent of the eminent people em- 
braced in a certain famous biographical dictionary were 
the sons or daughters of clergymen. This is probably 
an exaggeration, but, if it is even approximately true, 
what becomes of the old saw about " ministers' sons and 
deacons' daughters " ? It was Dean Swift, I believe, who, 
in view of the acknowledged preeminence of clergymen's 
children, advocated an endowment of the British par- 
sonage for the propagation of a superior race which 
should bless the world, because bred from choicest stock. 

A study and comparison have recently been made by 
Dr. A. E. Winship, of the descendants of the famous 
criminal vagabond, Jukes, and the descendants of Jona- 
than Edwards. The results are most astonishing, and 
doubtless if it were possible to make such studies and 
comparisons in other families, the influence of a godly 
home would always be seen even down to the third and 
fourth generation. Let me quote a few paragraphs from 

Mr. Winship 's book: 

64 



Christian Nurture Past and Present 

"The descendants of the Jukes family to the number 
of twelve hundred have been traced, while fourteen hun- 
dred members of the Edwards family have been studied 
and tabulated. The Jukes were notorious law-breakers, 
while the Edwards family has furnished practically no 
law-breakers and a great array of more than one hun- 
dred lawyers, thirty judges, and the most eminent law 
professor in the country. . . . Kone of the Jukes had 
the equivalent of a common-school education, while 
there are few of the Edwards family that have not had 
more than that. Few were satisfied with less than an 
academy or seminary, if they did not go to college. Yale 
alone has graduated more than one hundred and twenty 
of the family. ... Of the Jukes four hundred and forty 
were more or less viciously diseased. The Edwards 
family were healthy and long-lived. The Jukes neglected 
all religious privileges, defied and antagonized the 
church and all that it stands for, while the Edwards 
family has more than a hundred clergymen, missionaries, 
and theological professors, many of the most eminent in 
the country's history. . . . "Not one of the Jukes was 
ever elected to a public office, while more than eighty of 
the family of Jonathan Edwards have been especially 
honored. . . . The Jukes lacked the physical and moral 
courage as well as the patriotic purpose to enlist, but 
there were seventy -five officers in the army and navy in 
the family of Mr. Edwards. One spinster of the family 
residing in Detroit expressed much regret that she had 
no husband. The reason she gave was highly compli- 
mentary to the sterner sex, because she had no husband 
to send to the Civil War. . . . The Jukes were as far 
removed as possible from literature. They not only 

5 65 



Training the Church of the Future 

never created any, but they never read anything that 
could by any stretch of imagination be styled good read- 
ing. In the Edwards family some sixty have obtained 
prominence in authorship or editorial life. Whatever 
the Jukes stand for, the Edwards family does not ; what- 
ever weakness the Jukes represent, finds its antidote in 
the Edwards family, which has cost the country nothing 
in pauperism, in crime, in hospital or asylum service. 
On the contrary it represents the highest usefulness in 
invention, manufacture, commerce, founding of asylums 
and hospitals, establishing and developing missions, pro- 
jecting and energizing the best philanthropy." 

But, alas ! all homes are not Christian homes ; not one- 
half, scarcely one-fourth of all the households where 
shines the evening lamp, are even nominally Christian, 
and in many where the name of Christ is professed, and 
He is nominally honored as the Head of the household, 
there is but little of that direct, aggressive Christian in- 
fluence which insures the early acceptance of Christ by 
every child and constant development in the Christian 
graces. 

Some writers who exalt the home as the one sole and 
sufficient means for Christian nurture, apparently leave 
out of consideration the great multitude of Christless 
homes. If we should admit that the home is sufficient 
for one-fourth of the children who crowd our streets, 
who come from the right sort of homes, what shall be 
done for the other three-fourths'? For them there is 
no direct Christian influence in the home; they must 

66 



Christian Nurture Past and Present 

be trained for Christ elsewhere if they are trained 
at all. 

Thus is impressed upon us from still another point of 
view the vast importance of wise, systematic Christian 
training. 

The Sunday-school naturally presents itself as one of 
the chief and most important modern methods of Chris- 
tian nurture. I have no sympathy with those who, as is 
the fashion in some quarters, depreciate this method or 
decry it altogether because it has not attained to perfec- 
tion. It is true that in some Sunday-schools and in some 
classes in the best Sunday-schools a milk-and-water diet 
is given to the pupils. It is the Bible-and-water rather 
than the undiluted truth. Sacred geography and sacred 
history are often taught instead of the personal applica- 
tion of personal religion. The pattern of the ram's 
horns that the Israelites used in blowing down the walls 
of Jericho, and the particular kind of fish that swallowed 
Jonah, are often the staple subjects of discussion, while 
the teacher forgets to reason about temperance, right- 
eousness, and judgment to come. But with all these de- 
fects — and a brilliant lecturer might use more than one 
hour in pointing out the mistakes of Sunday-schools as 
well as the mistakes of Moses — the incalculable value of 
the Sunday- school can not be overestimated, or the debt 
of gratitude diminished that the world owes to Eobert 
Eaikes. 

Moreover, in this frequent denunciation and criticism 

67 



Training the Church of the Future 

indulged in some quarters, the real, downright, con- 
scientious work that multitudes of teachers put into the 
preparation and teaching of the lesson is often over- 
looked. Few know the hours and hours that are spent 
each week by tens of thousands of earnest Christians be- 
fore they meet their Sunday-school classes. Few on 
earth hear the prayers or count the efforts of the major- 
ity of these devoted men and women, while the weakness 
or imbecility of the small minority is held up to ridi- 
cule. 

The great fault of our Sunday-school teaching, if I 
may be allowed a single criticism, is that the truth is not 
often enough focused upon the hearts of the pupils. It 
is presented, but it is not driven home. Too much time 
is spent upon the generalities of the lesson, too little 
upon its application. Some Sunday-schools go on month 
after month and year after year, and there is no effort 
put forth to lead the scholar to make the great decision 
which we call conversion. In a great many schools 
this defect is remedied, and in all it may be remedied, 
by occasionally giving an evangelistic turn to the 
Sunday-school; by holding a few times each year a Sun- 
day-school prayer-meeting immediately after the Sun- 
day-school. Let me repeat the suggestions elsewhere 
made in regard to this meeting, which has proved such a 
harvest-time of ingathering in many Sunday-schools : 

"Let the pastor or superintendent, or some judicious 
teacher, take charge of the meeting, and in a few direct, 

68 



Christian Nurture Past and Present 

forcible words tell the children what it is to be a Chris- 
tian ; that Jesus longs to receive the smallest one ; that 
it is a matter of choice for the child as well as for the 
man ; and that Christianity is best shown by consistent, 
every-day living for Jesus at home, at school, and on the 
street. 

" At the first meeting it may be well to ask all those 
children to rise who are willing to think the matter over 
seriously and to try to decide before next Sunday 
whether or not they will be Christians. It is my experi- 
ence that a large number will rise at such an invitation ; 
some out of sympathy with others, and many because 
they sincerely desire, in a childish way, to become the 
followers of Jesus. In the week that intervenes they 
will have time to think the matter over, and, if they 
have Christian parents, they should be urged to talk 
with their parents, then with their Sunday-school teach- 
ers, or some experienced friend. 

"The next Sunday all these children, and very likely 
others, will remain to the Sunday-school prayer-meeting, 
and it may be well to ask them how many have thought 
the matter over carefully, and have finally decided to de- 
vote their lives to the Savior. It would seem best to 
make the decision appear a very plain and simple matter, 
but also a very serious matter, and to warn the boys and 
girls that they must make no pledges lightly or without 
full determination to carry them out. The great danger 
at this stage is that some, influenced by others, and with 
a feeble, half-formed determination to do better, will 
pledge themselves without really meaning anything by 
it ; but this danger can largely be guarded against by a 
few words of serious explanation of the nature of the 

69 



Training the Church of the Future 

Christian life, and of its being a matter of eternal im- 
port, and therefore not to be trifled with. 

"The serious may further be sifted out from the frivo- 
lous by asking all the children who wish to know more 
about the Christian life, and who are really in earnest to 
be followers of the Savior, to come to the pastor's house 
some week-day, appointing one day for the girls and an- 
other for the boys. For the most part, only those who 
are really in earnest will accept such an invitation ; and 
the opportunity this will give for private, personal talk 
with each of the children will be invaluable. 

" After four or five such Sunday-school prayer-meet- 
ings, followed by such supplementary meetings at the 
pastor's house, it will be easy to sift the merely impul- 
sive from the deeply serious or truly converted; and 
then it might be well to present to the boys and girls 
some simple pledge to which they shall sign their names, 
and which they can keep in their Bibles, and read over 
every day until it is ingrained into their minds. Every 
pastor will choose to make out his own pledge, perhaps, 
but I would suggest the following, as very simple and 
yet comprehensive : 

"'Trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ for strength, I 
promise Him that I will strive to do whatever He would 
like to have me do ; that I will pray to Him and read the 
Bible every day, and that, just so far as I know how, 
throughout my whole life I will try to lead a Christian life. 
" ' Signed^ . ' 

"The children, as we have said, should be encouraged 
in every way to talk with their parents and other friends 
about the matter, and perhaps, if they are quite young, 

70 



Christian Nurture Past and Present 

should take the pledge home and show it to their parents 
before they sign it. Very few parents will refuse to allow 
their children to sign such a pledge, and it will please 
them to know that everything that is done for their boys 
and girls is open and above-board. And now the real 
work of Christian nurture begins. The start has been 
made, the entering wedge has been driven, the door has 
been opened for the admission of the Spirit, and now 
comes the pastoral training and all the many good influ- 
ences which an active church can throw around its chil- 
dren. " * 

The pastor's class is another and often a most invalu- 
able means of training the young people in the distinc- 
tive things of the Christian life and in the duties and doc- 
trines of the church. If you will pardon an allusion to a 
personal experience at this point, I have always found 
that the formation of a pastor's class for a few weeks 
early in the year following upon the Sunday-school 
prayer-meeting which I have just described, was an in- 
valuable adjunct of the.se prayer -meetings. It gathered 
up the results. It gave me a personal acquaintance with 
the boys and girls. It gave me an opportunity to know 
something about their difficulties and their doubts. It 
enabled me to make plain the way of salvation and the 
path into the Kingdom. It insured every year an in- 
gathering of young people into the church who knew 
what the church was, what it stood for, and what it de- 
manded of them. 

* Clark, "Children and the Church." 
71 



Training the Church of the Future 

I hope it will not be considered boastful when I say 
that every year of my pastorate there were accessions, 
numbering usually from thirty to one hundred, most of 
them from the ranks- of the young. I speak of this not 
because I had or have any peculiar gifts or used any un- 
usual or startling methods to bring about these results. 
I was an average pastor in an average community, and 
what was done in those churches can in like measure be 
done in every church throughout the land. No evangel- 
ist was employed, tho I have no prejudice against wise 
evangelists, but rather rejoice exceedingly in their 
labors. But the methods adopted were those of the Sun- 
day-school, the Sunday-school prayer-meeting, the pas- 
tor's class, and the young people's society, of which I 
shall speak in a later lecture. 

I am not dealing with theories or fanciful suggestions, 
but with plans which might be marked, as the old lady 
marked the promises in her Bible, "T. arid P." — Tried 
and Proved. 

If young people are to be taken into the church at all, 
it is obviously most important that they should under- 
stand what they are doiug aud what the church believes ; 
at least that they should know the great fundamental 
doctrines of the church which are level with the child's 
comprehension. What better place is there than the 
pastor's class to provide just such instruction and to 
prepare for intelligent church-membership? 

It will not be necessary for the burdened pastor to 

72 



Christian Nurture Past and Present 

continue this class throughout the year, nor will it neces- 
sarily take a great amount of his time. A few weeks of 
training and instruction each year will fit the boys and 
girls who have made the choice of Christ for an intelli- 
gent confession of His name. The Junior Endeavor So- 
ciety gives an admirable opportunity for just such in- 
struction. There could not be a better pastor's class — 
the pastor taking fifteen or twenty minutes of the Junior 
hour for a few weeks or months, as he may see fit, for 
catechetical instruction. 

The catechisms and manuals for such training are in- 
numerable, ranging from the Westminster Shorter Cate- 
chism to the simplest and briefest modern statement of 
the essential truths of salvation. 

This subject of catechetical instruction is of sufficient 
consequence to occupy the whole time devoted to a lec- 
ture. "No church ever grew strong, or, having grown 
strong, held its strength, without a catechism," is the 
dictum of an eminent divine. This may be an exagger- 
ation, but the importance, if not of a catechism, at least 
of catechetical instruction, can scarcely be exaggerated. 
I have elsewhere suggested to Junior superintendents very 
urgently the catechetical methods. Perhaps I may be 
allowed to repeat here some things that I have already 
said: 

"My suggestion is simply this, that we should use for 
ten minutes of each Junior hour manuals of question and 
answer in which the boys and girls may learn the doq- 

73 



Training the Church of the Future 

trines of their own church, its history, and its work, and 
also lessons in clean, upright living, obedience, rever- 
ence, humility, and faithfulness. 

"All these virtues, to be sure, are treated in every 
well-regulated junior society, sooner or later, through 
the prayer-meeting topics; but it seems to me that 
through questions that can be ashed and answers that can 
be learned these greatest truths which Christ came to 
teach, and for which our churches stand, should be 
firmly planted in the little minds with which we have 
to deal. 

"I do not know how this can be done in any other way 
so well as by some manual of instruction which used to 
be called ' the catechism, ' and for which there is still no 
better name. 

"I hope it will be fully understood, however, that I do 
not advocate giving all the time, or even most of it, to 
this instruction. The Junior Society is largely for train- 
ing, and it would be a sad day when the training was 
lost or even minimized. 

"Children can be taught to pray only by praying, and 
to work by working, and to express their love for Christ 
by expressing it in some simple, natural, childlike way ; 
and it is still necessary and always will be necessary to 
devote much of the Junior hour to the prayer-meeting 
and much of the strength of the Junior Society to the 
committees — the lookout, and the social, and the flower, 
and the sunshine committees, and all the others which 
furnish the indispensable and absolutely necessary 
means of child-training. 

"But at the same time I think that at least ten min- 
utes of every hour might with profit be used for instruc- 
tion by question and answer — where the answers should 

74 



Christian Nurture Past and Present 

be carefully learned — concerning the great doctrines of 
the church, its history and purpose, and the practical 
concerns of daily life which result from these teachings. 

"Some pastors and superintendents may deem it best 
to concentrate this catechetical instruction into six or 
eight weeks of the year instead of using ten minutes 
each week; that is, they will give the whole hour to 
catechetical training for a few weeks, and for the rest of 
the year to the training idea. In either case this cate- 
chism of doctrines and duties will furnish a splendid 
preparation for church membership, and every year an 
intelligent class of earnest, intelligent junior Christians 
may be fitted for the church. 

"What a wide and important field does this open! 
How easily in this way may our children be taught, not 
only what their church believes, but what it stands for 
in history; something about the great men who have 
made its history, and something as well about the church 
universal and the martyrs and heroes who belong to all 
branches of it ! How plainly can it be made to appear 
that right living and pure thinking and honesty and rev- 
erence and faithfulness and obedience are all connected 
vitally with the religion of Christ ! How much the chil- 
dren may learn in this way that they will never forget 
about the cause of missions, and especially about the 
work which their own denomination is set to maintain in 
the home land and other lands ! 

"I think the answers to the questions should be learned 
week by week. This will bring about a revival of the 
too-much neglected art of memorizing Scripture pas- 
sages, and important truths framed in other words as 
well. The Juniors usually stay in the same society three 
or four or five years ; and during these years, if only one 

75 



Training the Church of the Future 

question is taken up and answered and thoroughly learned 
and explained each hour, a very large amount of gospel 
truth can be inculcated. 

"One minister to whom I have written wisely advises 
that this be made a concert exercise, and that at first all 
the children should be drilled to answer the question to- 
gether, and that they then may be questioned upon it 
separately. But all these details will be wisely managed 
by the versatile and consecrated superintendents and pas- 
tors. I have consulted many pastors of all denomina- 
tions concerning this plan of instruction for the Juniors, 
and all are enthusiastic for it. To all who desire I can 
furnish a list of over fifty catechisms used by different 
denominations. Large as it is, this list is 'doubtless far 
from complete." 

In my own experience I have often found it peculiarly 
helpful to take the church covenant and creed, to go 
through it with the boys and girls sentence by sentence, 
reducing the theological terms to their every-day equiv- 
alents, and striving to bring these somewhat formidable 
compendiums of belief within the reach of the child's 
mind. 

More than once with the boys and girls I went through 
Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress," and found that the al- 
legories of the immortal dreamer made plain to the child 
of to-day the pathway from the City of Destruction to 
Beulah Land. 

In many churches the Junior Endeavor Society is doing 
very much this work for the boys and girls all the year 

76 



Christian Nurture Past and Present 

round. From the ranks of these societies have come 
hundreds of thousands of youthful church members, 
trained and equipped as they would not otherwise have 
been. In many churches it accomplishes the object of 
the pastor's class and supplements his efforts in a won- 
derfully effective way. It always welcomes his presence 
and is his society to use as he chooses for the training 
and instruction of the boys and girls. For a part or the 
whole of the year, as he pleases, he can make it "the 
pastor's class, " and in it prepare year by year a fresh 
company of recruits for the army of the living God. 

The liturgical churches have made far more use of the 
catechetical method of Christian nurture than many of 
the free churches of America and Great Britain, and 
have found vast profit therein. The plan of the pastor's 
class is simply an adaptation of the confirmation class to 
the needs of all the churches which have not inherited 
this means of nurture from immemorial times. 

When we come to other forms Of work for young peo- 
ple I can not speak at length, as it is in my heart to do, 
and in words of highest commendation, of the Young 
Men's Christian Association; for its work, not being 
directly connected with the local church, does not come 
within the scope of this volume. 

Within the Episcopal fold the Brotherhood of St. An- 
drew does a similar and often most important work for 
the young men in the local church, while the Brotherhood 
of Andrew and Philip is an efficient interdenominational 

77 



Training the Church of the Future 

organization which in a considerable nnmber of churches 
has set young men to reach young men in the blessed 
work of evangelization. 

There are other methods of Christian nurture which 
will commend themselves to certain pastors. The Boys' 
Brigade has been used successfully in not a few churches 
in teaching the boys obedience, reverence, and the sol- 
dierly qualities of discipline, as well as the distinctive 
truths of the Bible. An objection urged by many is 
that it fosters the military spirit and is often a matter of 
considerable expense for uniforms, toy guns, etc. Some- 
times, too, there is a danger that the real spiritual pur- 
pose will be overshadowed by the military trappings, and 
that the religious instructor will be lost in the drill-mas- 
ter. Still, these evils are incidental and not inherent, 
and where the combination of captain and teacher is just 
right the results are often admirable. Boys' clubs have 
been useful in some places where the right leader can be 
found, and other similar methods should receive sym- 
pathetic attention. 

Another side of the Christian character is cultivated 
by children's mission circles, in which the boys and girls 
are taught to know the work of the heroes of the mission 
fields and the needs of the heathen world, and to pray 
and give and work for those in distant lands and the 
home-lands who are less favored than themselves. Such 
circles have done admirable service in developing this 
side of the Christian life. As a rule, the missionary 

78 



Christian Nurture Past and Present 

spirit can be developed more effectively in an organiza- 
tion like the Junior Christian Endeavor Society, which 
appeals to the all-round religious life of the boys and 
girls. These societies should always have their mission- 
ary department, which shall do for all what the mission 
circle has heretofore done for comparatively few. 

The bands of King's Daughters and King's Sons, too, 
have done, and are doing, a most important work in 
training the children in habits of gentleness, kindness, 
and helpfulness to others ; to do kind deeds every day 
and to do them for Christ's sake, comes very near em- 
bracing the whole gospel as well as the law and the 
prophets. 

So, too, the Bands of Mercy, a most helpful effort to 
teach kindness to dumb animals, the Loyal Temperance 
Legions, and other similar organizations for children, 
have worked admirably along certain lines, and deserve 
no small credit for instilling into the hearts of our chil- 
dren the virtues of temperance, purity, and kindness to 
the animal creation. 

Another chapter will attempt to show how all these 
most important elements in Christian training may be 
brought together and " domed over," as it were, under 
the roof of an organization that can give a large, whole- 
some, symmetrical training to all the moral and spiritual 
muscles of our growing boys and girls. 



79 



THE YOUNG PEOPLE'S SOCIETY OF 

CHRISTIAN ENDEAVOR AS A 

TRAINING-SCHOOL OP 

THE CHURCH 



Chapter III 



THE YOUNG PEOPLE'S SOCIETY OF CHRIS- 
TIAN ENDEAVOB AS A TRAINING-SCHOOL 
OF THE CHUECH 

THE HISTORY OF THIS TRAINING-SCHOOL — WHERE THE ORIGINAL 
SUGGESTION CAME FROM — MANY ORIGINAL ENDEAVORERS — HOW 
THE CRYSTALS WERE PRECIPITATED — CHRISTIAN ENDEAVOR A UNI- 
FIER AND SIMPLIFIER — ONE ELEMENT LARGELY LEFT OUT OF FOR- 
MER ORGANIZATIONS— PERSONAL EXERCISE AND TRAINING AS IM- 
PORTANT AS TEACHING — A GOOD DEFINITION OF TRUE CHILDREN 
OF THE CHURCH — THE ANALOGY BETWEEN PHYSICAL AND SPIR- 
ITUAL TRAINING— EXERCISE AS NECESSARY FOR YOUNG CHRISTIANS 
AS FOR YOUNG HORSES — AN ANCIENT PROTOTYPE OF THE MODERN 
ENDEAVOR SOCIETY — COTTON MATHER'S PROPOSAL FOR " THE RE- 
VIVAL OF DYING RELIGION " — SOME REMARKABLE RESEMBLANCES 
TO MODERN METHODS — THE CURE FOR HELPLESSNESS —THE IM- 
PORTANCE OF NORMAL HEALTHY ACTIVITY — THE FIRST CONSTITU- 
TION OF THE FIRST SOCIETY — THE FIRST SOCIETY BORN IN A 
REVIVAL — THE OPENING OF THE FIRST CHRISTIAN ENDEAVOR 
FLOWER — EXPERIMENTS OF THE PAST — THE SECOND SOCIETY — 
CRITICS AND CRITICISMS — THE FLEXIBILITY OF THE SOCIETY — 
FOUR CARDINAL PRINCIPLES: CONFESSION, SERVICE, FELLOWSHIP, 
LOYALTY — THE PSYCHOLOGIST AND THE PRACTICAL WORKER — THE 
STEPPING-STONE, THE TRAINING-SCHOOL, AND THE WATCH-TOWER. 

In approaching this subject I am embarrassed by the 
fear that I shall be considered a special pleader for a pet 
project. I can not claim to regard the history or the 
principles of the Christian Endeavor movement with 
indifference, but I have tried to consider them, not in 

83 



Training the Church of the Future 

the light of my preconceived opinions, but in the light 
of the history and experience of twenty years, and I 
have tried not to read into this history my own preju- 
dices and predilections. 

No one can realize more fully than I the small part I 
have had in establishing this society, how largely it has 
been taken by Providence out of human hands, how 
spontaneously it has developed ; and no one is more grate- 
ful that this is not a man-made scheme of Christian nur- 
ture, but a God-sent movement. 

I have often been asked about the genesis of the 
Young People's Society of Christian Endeavor; where 
the original suggestion came from ; with whom the name 
originated, and so on. Moreover, my memory has often 
been jogged by those who were very sure that they knew 
all about it. The idea originated, I am told, with any 
one of a hundred men who have been named. I have 
met at least half a hundred of the original Endeavorers 
from whom, according to themselves, the idea was bor- 
rowed. In fact, I have read more than one serious 
biography of myself in which the statement has been 
made that I was born in some town which as a matter of 
fact I have never seen, grew up in a church whose name 
I had never heard, and obtained the idea, afterward 
modified and enlarged, from some pastor whose identity 
had not been revealed to me until I read his letter or his 
article in the public press. 

The fact of the matter seems to be that the Christian 

84 



Y. P. S. C. E. as Training-School of Church 

Endeavor movement was crystallizing for years and 
needed but a little event to precipitate the crystals and 
give them shape. It may be fair to say that it originated 
with no one in particular, but with many in general. 
Ten thousand pastors in ten thousand churches twenty 
years ago felt the need of some systematic and efficient 
method of Christian nurture. Hundreds were experi- 
menting along different lines, but all these lines con- 
verged at one center, a heartfelt desire to train the chil- 
dren and youth for God. Moreover, all these methods 
and experiments (some of which I have described in the 
last chapter) made almost inevitable some organization 
which should combine them and use them more effec- 
tively. There was no unity or cohesion to these plans. 
One little group of children was being trained in mis- 
sionary activity and was being taught to think and pray 
and work for the heathen world. Another was being 
taught in temperance lore, to hate the wine-cup, and to 
wear proudly the blue ribbon. A few others were being 
trained to be kind to animals, and others were learning 
the Bible in the Sunday-school or the catechism in the 
pastor's class. 

But the young people who were in one organization 
could not well be in another. Those who belonged to 
the Mission Circle did not have much time for the Band 
of Hope, and it was evident that some unification, ar- 
rangement, and systematization of these plans was neces- 
sary. In tens of thousands of churches this unification 

85 



Training the Church of the Future 

has been found very largely in the Christian Endeavor 
Society or organizations founded upon similar methods. 

I do not mean that there was any set purpose to unify 
these different organizations. No man surely had any 
such purpose, but in the Providence of God it has come 
about that under the roof of one organization, with its 
different meetings and its different committees, many of 
these efforts for the youth have found their home. The 
Christian Endeavor movement unwittingly has become a 
great simplifier of church machinery. The same young 
people are taught not only temperance, but foreign mis- 
sions and home missions, and philanthropic work, and 
not only the evil of intoxicants, but the fruits of the 
Spirit — to be kind and gentle, generous and manly, and 
to use all their powers for Christ. 

It is noticeable that in these former organizations and 
methods of training the young people, one element was 
largely left out — the element of training, of personal 
exercise. If you will examine carefully all these 
plans, admirable as many of them were, you will notice 
that, almost without exception, the teaching element 
predominated. It entirely overshadowed, if it did not 
absolutely displace, the idea of training. In fact, it is 
surprising how largely this idea of training the young 
had been disregarded in the past. It is not unnatural, 
perhaps, for the past originated and lived up to the 
adage that " Children should be seen and not heard. " 
The past, as compared with these last days at least, was 

86 



Y. P. S. C. E. as Training-School of Church 

the period of repression. Young America had not come 
to the front. The industrial school was unknown. A 
manual training class had been unheard of. Sloid was 
never taught in our grammar schools, and the religious 
instruction of our churches corresponded in its leading 
ideas to the secular instruction of our schools. 

In the providence of God, as it seems to me, without 
human design or intention and with very little human 
wisdom, the Christian Endeavor Society came to remedy 
this defect and to provide the all-important element of 
training — to exalt it side by side with the idea of in- 
struction in all our churches. 

One of the best definitions that I have ever heard of 
those two modern children of the church, the Sunday- 
school and the Young People's Society of Christian En- 
deavor, is as follows : " The Sunday-school is the church 
instructing the young ; the Christian Endeavor Society is 
the church training the young." 

The following paragraphs were written in the very 
earliest days of the Christian Endeavor movement, and 
the force and importance of the statements have been 
growing upon me with every passing year. It seems to 
me that the spiritual training of the child lies at the very 
foundation of the Christian Endeavor movement as a 
modern means of Christian nurture. 

" The analogy between the physical and spiritual train- 
ing of the child is very close. We sometimes say, in the 
exaggeration of familiar speech, that such and such a 

87 



Training the Church of the Future 

child of indulgent parents has had everything done for 
him, and yet what we really mean is only this: that 
every facility has been provided that love and wealth 
can suggest to enable the child to do well for himself. 
The kind parent can provide good air for his child and 
perfect ventilation, but after all the child must breathe 
the air for himself. The most loving parent can not ex- 
ercise for the child. The young person must do this for 
himself. Perhaps this is the most important and most 
neglected element of self-culture in religious matters. 
For invalids there are many strong advocates of the sys- 
tem of massage, in which the body of the sick man is 
pinched and pulled and kneaded and worked over ; this 
may do very well for the invalid, who has not strength 
to exercise himself, but none of us would claim that 
massage is the best exercise for the growing child. In 
order to grow strong he must run, and jump, and play 
for himself. 

"The cord that draws the young soul upward toward 
God is woven of a threefold strand. He must know 
what Christ's will is through the instruction of parents 
and Christian teachers; he must publicly acknowledge 
that Christ's will is his will ; and then he must do that 
will. Instruction, confession, activity — these three ele- 
ments entering into the young life, when preceded by a 
complete heart surrender, can not fail to develop the 
strong man, ' complete in Him. ' 

"It is just as unreasonable to expect the child to grow 
strong of muscle and supple of limb while strapped to a 
bed and never allowed to rise and run about, as to ex- 
pect the young disciple to grow ' strong in the Lord ' 
while never exercising his spiritual faculties. 

88 



Y. P. S. C. E. as Training-School of Church 

"The instruction of the pulpit and Sunday-school may 
well be likened to the food provided at the family table. 
It is, very likely, abundant in quantity and nutritious in 
quality, but food without exercise in the family circle 
makes the sickly, dyspeptic child. Food without exer- 
cise in the church is apt to produce no better results. 

"Even the horses in our stables can not long live with- 
out exercise. Fill their cribs never so full of the best 
feed, they must yet do something to keep healthy. This 
is a natural law, which is imperative in the spiritual 
world. There are a great many dyspeptic Christians in 
all our churches. They are bilious and disappointed and 
hopeless and useless, except as they become by their con- 
tinual growling and fault-finding means of grace in the 
form of chastisement to the pastor and other workers. 
In fact, they have all the symptoms of spiritual dyspep- 
sia. Now the only remedy for this disease is spiritual 
activity. ' Go to work, ' said the famous English doctor 
to his rich, dyspeptic patient ; ' go to work. Live on 
sixpence a day, and earn it. ' " * 

It is interesting to notice how young people themselves 
have felt the need of this training, of this exercise in the 
Christian graces, and have reached out after it even 
when it was being withheld by their elders. 

As the baby must kick its feet and wave its ineffectual 
arms if it is well and strong, as the boy and girl must 
romp and play and exercise their muscles whether a 
gymnasium is provided for them or not, so there seems 
to be something in the nature of the young Christian 

* Clark, "Young People's Prayer-Meetings." 
89 



Training the Church of the Future 

that demands exercise. He must do something for him- 
self. He will be stifled and dwarfed if everything is 
done for him. 

The sense of this universal need is shown by the unor- 
ganized groups of young people of which I have before 
spoken, who used to gather together especially in times 
of revival interest to pray for and encourage each other. 
This sense of the need of exercise accounts for the many 
young people's meetings which in former days often 
died a lingering death, and were revived only to die 
once more. 

# A notable instance of such a desire for personal relig- 
ious exercise and work is shown by a movement which 
began in the early part of the eighteenth century and 
survived but a few years, crushed out apparently by the 
indifference or hostility of the churches. This move- 
ment bore many remarkable likenesses to the modern 
Society of Christian Endeavor. These young people of 
nearly two hundred years ago had their weekly meeting, 
in which, according to the provision of the ancient con- 
stitution, it was ordered that " there be two hours at a 
time set apart, and let there be two prayers made by the 
members of the society in their turns, between which let 
a sermon be repeated, and there should be the singing of 
a psalm annexed." This society was apparently origi- 
nated by none other than the distinguished Cotton 
Mather, who told about it in a little book, now very rare 
and valuable, whose title-page reads: 

90 



Y. P. S. C. E. as Training-School of Church 



Religious Societies. 



PROPOSALS 

For the REVIVAL o? 

Dying Religion 

BY Well-Ordered 

Societies 

For That PURPOSE. 

With a brief Discourse, Offered 
unto a Religious Society, on 
the Firft Day ot their Meeting. 



i ThefE V. ii. Edify one another 



BOSTON: 
Printed by S. Kneeland, for John 
Phillips, and Sold at his Shop 
over againft the South-fide ofths 

Town Houfe. 1724. I 

— - n - - 1 .ii ■- ' 

This society, which I had not heard of until an anti- 
quarian brought it to my attention years after the Ohris- 

91 



Training the Church of the Future 

tian Endeavor movement was well under way, had sev- 
eral other features analogous to the modern Endeavor 
Society. For instance, corresponding to the roll-call 
meeting of the modern Society of Christian Endeavor, 
Art. V. of Cotton Mather's manual provides: 

ST. LET the Lift be once a Quarter called 
ever 5 and then, If it be obferved, that any of the 
Society have much abfented themfelves, Let there 
be fome fent unto them, to inquire the Jteafort oF 
their Abfence ; and M no Reajhn be given, buc 
fuch as intimates an Apejlacy from good Begin- 
nings, Let them upon obftinacy, after loving and 
faithful Admonitions, be Obliterated. 

Doubtless the names and not the persons were to be 
" obliterated, " but here was the modern consecration 
meeting in its embryonic form and the very same means 
of keeping the society free from inactive members. 

" It is very certain, " remarks the distinguished author, 
" that where such Private Meetings, under a good Con- 
duct have been kept alive, the Christians which have 
composed them, have like so many Coals of the Altar 
kept one another alive, and kept up a lively Christianity 
in the neighborhood. Such Societies have been tried, 
and proved to be strong Engines, to uphold the Power 
of Godliness. The throwing up of such Societies has 
been accompanied with a Visible Decay of Godliness. 
The less Love to them, the less Use of them, there has 
been in a Place, the less has Godliness nourished there ; 
the less there has been of the Kingdom of God. " * 

* Cotton Mather, "Proposals for the Revival of Dying Religion." 

92 



Y. P. S. C. E. as Training-School of Church 

It is worthy of note that these societies were started in 
a period of religious declension and dearth as was the 
Young People's Society of Christian Endeavor, for the 
very same purpose — to bring about decisions for Christ 
and training in His service. 

For a time these societies multiplied, but, alas ! they 
were not looked upon with much favor. The ecclesias- 
tical spirit of the times was against lay activities, and 
especially against the activities of young and inexperi- 
enced laymen. The tithing-man was more in evidence 
than the lookout committee to keep the young people in 
the right way. The church acted the part of the tradi- 
tional stepmother rather than of the loving parent to this 
new organization. It was soon crushed out and after a 
few years we hear little of it. 

It is chiefly interesting to us of to-day as showing the 
desire ineradicable in the heart of the young Christian to 
do as well as to get ; to give as well as to receive ; to ex- 
ercise as well as to be taught. This desire can not be 
frozen by ecclesiastical coldness or crushed by churchly 
indifference. It is implanted in the heart of the young 
Christian. It demands free scope, and in these later 
days has received such recognition as never before, for 
the whole Christian Endeavor movement in every land is 
based on this thought of exercise, of manifestation of life, 
of training as distinct from religious teaching and equally 
necessary with it. 

The vital importance of religious activity to supple- 

93 



Training the Church of the Future 

ment and round out religious instruction is recognized 
by the psychologists as well as by the practical pastor 
and evangelist. It is taught by philosophy as well as by 
history. 

"The cure for helplessness that conies with storm and 
stress in the period of adolescence, " says Professor Star- 
buck, "is often found in inducing wholesome activity. 
1 Faith without works is dead. ' Let us call to mind the 
fact that storm and stress and doubt are experienced 
some time during youth by something like seventy per 
cent of all the persons studied. On the other hand, 
heightened activity, which is characterized not only by 
interest in religious matters but by engaging in actual 
religious work, was experienced by only about twenty - 
two per cent of all these persons. This is doubtless very 
much out of proportion. Many persons have found the 
solution of their difficulties by actually setting about 
doing things."* 

This is exactly what the Christian Endeavor Society 
seeks to do for every one of its members. It sets them 
about doing things and thus tides them over the critical 
periods of adolescence, the years of storm and stress and 
doubt. Professor Coe confirms Professor Starbuck in 
prescribing the same treatment for those who are dis- 
tressed by doubts and fears. We must add to the intel- 
lectual food something not less needful : 

"The youth should by all means be induced to be ac- 
tive in those forms of religious living that still appeal to 

* Starbuck, "Psychology of Religion." 
94 



Y. P. S. C. E. as Training-School of Church 

him at all. . . . Eeligious activity and religious com- 
forts may abide at the same time that the intellect is un- 
certain how this fits into any logical structure. Thus it 
comes to pass that the greatest thing we can do for the 
doubting youth is to induce him to give free exercise to 
the religious instinct. Let him not say what he does not 
actually believe, let him not compromise himself in any 
way, but it is always certain that he still believes and 
feels and aspires enough to give him a place among re- 
ligious people. " * 

It is just this normal, healthy, necessary activity, 
which the scientific psychologist recognizes as so impor- 
tant in the period of adolescence, that the Society of 
Christian Endeavor attempts to supply. The philos- 
ophy of its success, so far as the society has been suc- 
cessful, is that it fits the needs of the young soul. It is 
no haphazard experiment. Its roots run down into the 
nature of youth. In God's good plan the wards of the 
key fit the lock, and the door of larger service and nobler 
living is through it opened to young men and women. 

The simple story of the beginning of the Christian En- 
deavor movement need not be rehearsed at length ; it has 
been often enough told. The society had its humble 
origin in a church in the city of Portland, Me. , about 
twenty years ago. The first society was simply an ex- 
periment of one pastor in the training of youth for 
Christ — such an experiment as thousands of others were 
making with anxious hearts, and which led these thou- 

*Coe, "Spiritual Life." 
95 



Training the Church of the Future 

sands so quickly to unite in one plan when it was pre- 
sented to them. 

There hangs upon a wall in my house, in a room 
devoted to Christian Endeavor banners, badges, and 
mementos from all parts of the world, a faded hecto- 
graph copy of the original constitution of the first So- 
ciety of Christian Endeavor. I remember very well 
copying the constitution upon this hectograph pad, be- 
cause it did not seem worth while to waste money and 
printer's ink upon a document so perishable and ephem- 
eral. Thus the constitution was printed and distrib- 
uted among the earliest members. It has since been 
printed, it is supposed, in at least sixty different lan- 
guages, and to the extent of not less than ten millions of 
copies, while the pledge has been printed not less than 
one hundred millions of times. 

I speak of this to show how little human wisdom or 
forethought . there was in the inception of the Christian 
Endeavor movement. It was simply a very humble effort 
of a very humble pastor, but it is such seeds which God 
often plants and from which He grows a harvest. It is 
the foolishness of organizations as well as the foolish- 
ness of preaching (not foolish organizations or foolish 
preaching) which confounds the wise, for few of the 
wise men of that day saw any hope or promise in 
this plan of Christian nurture. In fact, many saw 
only something to distrust or condemn or perhaps 
ridicule, and not a few were the articles and the ad- 

96 



Y. P. S. C. E. as Training-School of Church 

dresses which in those early days were aimed against 
the new society. 

There are, however, some points often overlooked that 
are worth noting in this early history. The first Society 
of Christian Endeavor was born in a period of dearth and 
sluggishness in the church at large. For many years, as 
the records prove, additions to the churches were few. 
It was a period of unrest and inquiry and much so- 
licitude, especially concerning the young. Every min- 
isters' meeting was discussing the matter. The first 
society was the outcome of a local revival. It breathed 
the warm atmosphere of a religious awakening. It was 
an honest effort to help the young people to help them- 
selves. It was an attempt to supply the lack of train- 
ing ; to balance the teaching of others with the personal 
work of the young converts. It was an effort to provide 
exercise as well as food for the soul. It was the effort of 
a pastor. It was an effort in the church, for the church, 
of the church. All the later growth of the society shows 
the marks of these early days. The constitution, tho en- 
larged and amended, is substantially the same as when 
drawn up and printed on that hectograph pad. Still the 
great object of the society is to provide a training-school 
for the youth. Still its purpose is to teach them to do 
things by doing them ; not by hearing how they ought to 
be done. Still it is the pastor's solicitude and the pas- 
tor's joy if he uses it aright. Still it is in the church 
and of the church and for the church. Still it flourishes 
7 97 



Training the Church of the Future 

best in a warm, evangelistic atmosphere. Still its great 
object and purpose is to conserve the fruits of every re- 
ligions awakening, and, as its constitution says, to make 
the young people, thus awakened, "more useful in the 
service of God." 

With great solicitude I watched the opening of the 
first Christian Endeavor flower, lest it should be blighted 
by some untoward wind before it had fairly blossomed. 
Various other experiments had been tried in the Willis- 
ton church to win and hold the young people, but they 
had largely or wholly failed of their object. The reason 
of their failure was because I had expected too little of 
the young people, because I had not appealed to the 
heroic in their natures, because I had thought that the 
young soul could be coaxed into the kingdom and satis- 
fied with entertainments and games and "pink teas" and 
oyster suppers. It was a wof ul mistake ; but one which 
a young pastor perhaps may be pardoned for making, 
since he had never been taught any better, and since a 
multitude of others were making the same blunders. 

The Christian Endeavor Society, warned by the foolish 
experiments of tickling the young Christian with the 
straws of amusement, started out on totally different 
lines. The young people were not to have everything 
done for them, but were to do for themselves. They 
were not to have the way to heaven made smooth and 
easy ; they were to overcome its obstacles and level its 
rough places. They were not simply to be preached at 

98 



Y. P. S. C. E. as Training-School of Church 

and prayed for ; they were to speak in a manner appro- 
priate to youth, and they were to pray. They were not to 
be excused from every duty because of some whim or 
mood or passing indisposition; they were to overcome 
their whims and control their moods and make a sacred 
engagement with their fellows every week to meet them 
in the prayer-room and do a Christian's tasks. 

As the society was a radical departure from every plan 
that had been tried in that church, so the results obtained 
were strikingly different from anything before accom- 
plished by the young people. The young people's meet- 
ing, which had been a dead-and-alive affair dependent 
altogether for life upon the passing waves of spiritual 
emotion, took on new and permanent power. Every 
meeting was a good one, because in every meeting the 
rank and file had part and exercised their spiritual 
graces. The monthly roll-call meeting showed who the 
few delinquents were, and enabled the older members 
and the pastor to deal with them. The committees fur- 
nished to every one some definite and appropriate work 
that gave them the exercise they needed to digest the 
truth they already knew. The monthly reports of the 
committees kept the members up to their duties and 
modestly showed their successful efforts or revealed 
their delinquencies. Others were brought in constantly 
through the associate door of the society into the active 
membership and into the church. In short, a constant 
spirit of religious enthusiasm for work and worship per- 

L.ofC. " 



Training the Church of the Future 

vaded the society. The old order of things seemed to 
have passed away, and many things, at least in the lives 
of these young people, had become new. As the farm- 
ers say that in the hot days of August they can see the 
corn grow on the Western prairies, so it seemed to me 
that I could see these young disciples grow in grace. 

The society spread quietly but rapidly from this start- 
ing-point. Eight months later the second society was 
formed; this one in Newbury port, Mass. A few days 
later another and then another was organized. The 
gathering snowball grew larger and larger as it rolled 
on, until in a few years every State and province in 
North America and almost every country in the world 
had its Christian Endeavor contingent. 

Of course there were criticisms, some of them vinegar - 
ish, most of them kindly and helpful. It was said that 
the prayer-meeting rule would make the young people 
formal and perfunctory in their participation ; that it 
would develop prigs and precocious young exhorters; 
that it would set them up in their own estimation above 
their elders; that it would separate them into cliques 
and clans ; and that the church would lose its young life, 
which would thus be absorbed in a separate organization. 

The answer to most of these objections was " Wait and 
see. " In the original society the plan has not made prigs 
or formalists. The prayer-meeting is not a perfunctory 
routine service, but more vital and instinct with spiritual 
life than ever before. The young people are not divided 

100 



Y. P. S. C. E. as Training-School of Church 

into disloyal cliques, but are more eager to serve the 
church than ever they were before. Theoretical objec- 
tions do not stand before practical demonstrations. The 
best answer to the early critics of Christian Endeavor 
were the Christian Endeavor societies themselves. The 
best answer to-day to objections is a well -organized, 
thoroughgoing, genuine Society of Christian Endeavor. 

Other objections were evidently founded on misappre- 
hensions which were easily removed. At first it was 
supposed by many that it was expected that every im- 
mature Christian should preach a little sermon or offer a 
well-rounded prayer, but it soon became known that a 
very simple participation satisfied all the requirements 
of the pledge — a verse of Scripture, an appropriate quo- 
tation, a word of testimony, a sentence of prayer. This 
participation, it was seen, was as appropriate for the 
boy in the young people's meeting, as the long ten-min- 
ute prayer of his grandfather, in which the Jews were 
never forgotten, was appropriate to the mid-week meet- 
ing of the church. Another misapprehension was the 
relation of the society to the church. In those early 
days it was not always understood that it was not, strict- 
ly speaking, a "relation" of the church. It was and is 
the church, a part of the church, and the church training 
the young. It is the church meeting in its young peo- 
ple's service; the church working in its young people's 
committees; the church praying through the voices of 
its youth. 

101 



Training the Church of the Future 

Even now it is difficult thoroughly to establish this 
idea. Some still seem to think that the church is the 
Sunday-morning service or the Sunday-evening service ; 
that the church is the minister and the office bearers ; 
that the church is some particular service or section of 
its membership; and we sometimes hear wails about 
disintegrating the church because the young people have 
their meeting and their special plans for doing a special 
work which the church needs to have done. 

Away with this medieval idea! The church is the 
aggregate of its members at work in their different ways 
and according to their different capacities. The church 
is found instructing in the preaching services and the 
Sunday-school. The church is found praying in the 
prayer-meeting for young and old. The church working 
is the benevolent and missionary organizations and com- 
mittees for both sexes and all ages. A clear apprehen- 
sion of this truth, which I believe can not be gainsaid, 
cuts the ground from under most of the serious objections 
which have been made to the young people's movement. 

I recently returned from my third journey around the 
world in the interests of the Christian Endeavor move- 
ment, and in view not of my theories and predilections, 
but of actual experience with societies in these many 
lands as well as at home, I wish to present the funda- 
mental principles on which I believe the movement is 
based. If this presentation has no other merit, it is at 
least the result of careful observation and experience in 

102 



Y. P. S. C. E. as Training-School of Church 

many lands. Sometimes, perhaps, this can better be 
trusted in a matter of practical concern than the theories 
of the doctrinaire. There is a God-sent element in ex- 
perience and the practise of hundreds of thousands of 
earnest hearts that is not always found in the study. If 
I can restate the principles of the Christian Endeavor 
movement in the terms of experience, it will be worth 
more than any theories or reasonings which tempt one 
by their originality and novelty. 

One test of a truth is that it is universal. Faith is 
faith in India and Kamchatka. Hope is hope in the 
New World and the Old. Charity is the "greatest of 
these " at the equator and the pole. So it is in all lesser 
matters that have in them the elements of universal truth. 
Here is the test of the value of an idea, of a movement, 
of an organization. Is it a temporary expedient that 
meets some local temporary need, or is it a satisfaction 
for a universal need? Is it a post to which something 
may be tied for a little, oris it a tree, with deep -running 
roots and wide-arching branches, which grows with the 
years, and whose seed takes root in any fertile soil? 
Thus can movements be tested. 

Let us apply this proof to the principles of the Chris- 
tian Endeavor Society, and see if they meet the test. 

In any such movement there must necessarily be many 
things that are local and temporary. Committees that 
are necessary in one society are entirely unnecessary in 
another. Place and hour of service, methods of roll- 

103 



Training the Church of the Future 

call, ways of conducting the meetings, frequency and 
character of business gatherings — all afford room for an 
infinite variety of details, preventing any dull uniform- 
ity of method, and affording opportunity for the utmost 
ingenuity and resourcefulness. In these details societies 
in different parts of the world will surely differ one from 
another, and they ought to do so. These matters are not 
the essential, universal principles of the movement. It 
would be the height of absurdity to say that, because a 
society in London has its meeting at seven o'clock Mon- 
day evening, a society in Labrador should observe the 
same day and hour; that because a society in Sydney 
has nineteen committees, a society in Shanghai must 
have just a score less one. 

A thousand matters are left free and flexible in Chris- 
tian Endeavor. Personal initiative, invention, re- 
source, the constant leading of the Spirit of God, are 
possible and necessary. The Christian Endeavor consti- 
tution is no hard chrysalis which forever keeps the but- 
terfly within from trying its wings. There is room even 
for experiments and failures, since we will always re- 
member that the worst failure is to make no endeavor. 
Yet, while this is true, it is equally true that a universal 
movement must have principles that do not change with 
the seasons, do not melt at the tropics or congeal at the 
poles. A tree puts forth new leaves every year; but 
it does not change its roots. It simply lengthens and 
strengthens them. The roots of the Christian Endeavor 

104 



Y. P. S. C. E. as Training-School of Church 

tree, wherever it grows, are Confession of Christ, Service 
for Christ, Fellowship with Christ's People, and Loyalty 
to Christ's Chnrch. The farther I travel and the more I 
see of societies in every land, the more I am convinced 
that these four principles are the essential and the only 
essential principles of the Christian Endeavor Society. 
Let me repeat them : 

I. Confession of Christ. 

II. Service for Christ. 

III. Fellowship with Christ's People. 

IV. Loyalty to Christ's Church. 

With these roots the Christian Endeavor tree will bear 
fruit in any soil. Cut away any of these roots in any 
clime, and the tree dies. 

I. Confession of Christ is an essential in the Christian 
Endeavor Society. To insure this in appropriate and 
natural ways, the methods of the society are adapted in 
every particular. Every week comes the prayer-meet- 
ing, in which every member who fulfils his vows takes 
some part, unless he can excuse himself to his Master. 
This participation is simply the confession of Christ. 
This confession is as acceptably made by the unlearned, 
stumbling, lisping Christian as by the glib and ready 
phrase -maker, if the few and halting words of the former 
have the true ring of sincerity about them. 

The covenant pledge is a tried and proved device to 
promote frequent confession of Christ. It secures, as 
nothing else has been known to do, the frequent and 

105 



Training the Church of the Future 

regular confession of Christ by the young Christian. It 
also secures familiarity with the Word of God, by pro- 
moting Bible reading and study in preparation for every 
meeting. There is sometimes an outcry against the 
pledge, as tho we exalted a mere instrument to the place 
of a universal principle. This is not the case. We 
exalt the pledge as a builder exalts his plumb-line and 
spirit-level. They are not his house, but he can not 
build so good a house without as with them. We exalt 
the pledge as a painter exalts his brush, as a musician 
his violin, as a writer his pen. The brush is not the 
picture, the violin is not the music, the pen is not the 
poem ; but the brush helps make the picture, the violin 
the music, the pen the poem ; and the pledge helps make 
the Christian Endeavor Society because it insures regular 
and frequent confession of Christ. Let it be understood ; 
no form of words is insisted on. Any pastor is free to 
make his own pledge ; only let the Christian Endeavor 
essentials be set forth in it. 

So also the consecration meeting, with its roll-call, is 
another instrument that makes confession doubly sure 
and doubly sacred. The calling of the names at the 
monthly roll-call declares the faithful confessor of 
Christ, and also reveals the careless non- confessor and 
pledge-breaker, and confronts each one, month by 
month, with the solemn question : 

"Am I on the Lord's side? 

Do I serve the King ? " 

106 



Y. P. S. C. E. as Training-School of Church 

This principle of confession in Christian Endeavor, I 
have fonnd all the world around, is not dependent on 
degrees of latitude and longitude. The societies in Foo- 
chow, China, have nourished and multiplied because 
from the beginning they have observed this feature of 
Christian Endeavor. The rude little groups of Chris- 
tians on the Mngpo, just out of rank, crass heathenism, 
have caught hold of this great principle in their socie- 
ties, and, tho they have little else in common with our 
methods, are worthy the fellowship of any of us. In a 
post and telegraph station in North Japan, in the Beals 
of East Bengal, on the ships of the United States navy, 
in the prisons of Kentucky and Indiana, among the rude 
Islanders of the South Seas, this covenant is kept, and 
the Christian Endeavor Society flourishes because the 
covenant idea insures constant confession of Christ 
where nothing of the sort flourished before, for it is one 
of the main trunk-roots through which it draws nourish- 
ment and life. 

In this virtue of free, outspoken confession of our 
faith, we Anglo-Saxon Protestants are singularly lack- 
ing. I know of no race that is so shamefaced about its 
faith, so unwilling to declare its allegiance. The Turk 
stands five times a day and prays with his face toward 
Mecca, caring not who sees him. On the housetop, by 
the wayside, in the courtyard of the inn, when the hour 
of prayer comes, he unfailingly declares: " Great is 
God, and Mahomet is His prophet." I have heard the 

107 



Training the Church of the Future 

Buddhist mutter half the day long: "I believe in 
Buddha, I believe in Buddha." And much of the prop- 
agating power of these false or defective faiths and the 
tremendous hold they have on the human race to-day is 
the result of this unabashed, outspoken proclamation of 
their doctrines. 

II. The second essential of the Christian Endeavor So- 
ciety is constant service for Christ. Here, too, can we 
not see the hand of God in building the society on this 
corner-stone? For various reasons our churches have 
come to contain many silent partners, many who do 
not serve. Social consideration, decline of early zeal, 
physical incapacity, have filled our church rolls and 
have not multiplied our church workers. I am not 
finding fault or indulging in a cheap fling at the lazi- 
ness of Christians. This is simply a fact. Some coun- 
teracting forces were needed. Here is one of them — 
a society whose ideal, like Wesley's, is, "At it, and 
all at it, and always at it " — a society that finds a task 
for the least as well as the greatest, for the youngest 
and most diffident as well as for the few natural-born 
leaders. 

III. Again, it is plain that fellowship is an essential 
feature of the Christian Endeavor movement. This, too, 
is not a matter of zones, or climates, or latitudes, or lan- 
guages. This fellowship is a universal, God-given, fun- 
damental feature of Christian Endeavor. In every land 
I have felt the heart-throbs of my fellow Christians. 

108 



Y. P. S. C. E. as Training-School of Church 

This fellowship is expressed in different ways, but it is 
always the same fellowship. 

In Japan, I have prostrated myself on hands and 
knees with my fellow Endeavorers and touched my fore- 
head to the floor as they touched theirs. 

In China, over and over again, a thousand Endeavor- 
ers have stood up as I addressed them, and have shaken 
their own hands at me while I have shaken mine at 
them. 

In India they have hung scores of garlands about my 
neck, until I have blushed for my own unworthiness of 
such a flowery welcome. 

In Bohemia they have embraced me and kissed me on 
either cheek (the aged fathers of the church, it should be 
understood, indulge in this salutation). 

In Mexico they have hugged me in a bear's embrace, 
and patted me lovingly on the back. 

Always it has been evident that these greetings were 
far more than personal matters. They represent the fel- 
lowship of the cause. Always, whatever the form, the 
loving greeting of loving hearts is the same. 

In the Fukien province of China, when we approached 

a Christian village — where, by the way, there is very 

likely to be a Christian Endeavor Society — we were sure 

to hear, in the soft accent of the almond-eyed peoples, 

the greeting, "Ping 'ang, ping 'ang, ping 'ang" (" Peace, 

peace, peace"). Perhaps a hundred people, old and 

young, would utter this benediction as we walked 

109 



Training the Church of the Future 

through a single village. So it seems to me, as I have 
gone around the world again and again, I have heard the 
gentle word of fellowship from a million Endeavorers, 
" Peace, peace, peace." 

This fellowship is not an accident or a matter of 
chance. It is an inevitable result of the movement. 
When the second society was formed, twenty years ago, 
the fellowship began. Then it became inter-denomina- 
tional, inter-state, inter-national, inter-racial, inter-con- 
tinental, and, as some one has suggested, since 

" Part of the hosts have crossed the flood, 
And part are crossing now," 

it has become inter-mundane. 

IV. Once more, a universal essential of the Society of 
Christian Endeavor is fidelity to Christ, to its own church, 
and the work of that church. It is a thoroughly evan- 
gelical movement, defining evangelical as personal faith 
in the divine human person and atoning work of our 
Lord and Savior Jesus Christ as the only and sufficient 
source of salvation. It does not and can not exist for 
itself. When it does, it ceases to be a Society of Chris- 
tian Endeavor. It may unworthily bear the name. It 
may be reckoned in the lists, just as an unworthy man 
may find his name on the church roll. But a true So- 
ciety of Christian Endeavor must live for Christ and the 
church. Its confession of love is for Christ the head ; its 
service is for the church, His bride; its fellowship is 
possible only because its loyalty is unquestioned. This 

110 



Y. P. S. C. E. as Training-School of Church 

characteristic, too, I have found as universal as the so- 
ciety. I have found no real exceptions. In city or 
country, in Christian land or mission field, in Europe, 
Asia, Africa, or America, it is everywhere the same. 

Because these ideals and principles are held, it is 
sometimes necessary to urge older Christians, however, 
not to hold Christian Endeavorers responsible, as some 
are inclined to do, for every weakness among young 
Christians, which the society is doing its best to remedy 
but can not wholly overcome. Because many young 
people do not go to church, the society is often blamed. 
Because some forget their vows, the splendid fidelity of 
the rank and file is forgotten. Because the church pews 
are not filled, or the Sunday-school enlarged, or the 
longed-for revival comes not, the society is made the 
scapegoat by some unthinking Christians for these de- 
fects, for the very reason that its ideals on these matters 
are exalted. Each of these principles is natural and 
basal. No one of them is a matter of mechanism. No 
one is a matter of expediency. Each is a sine qua non. 
In every continent you will find these features of Chris- 
tian Endeavor are necessary. You will find, also, I be- 
lieve, that no other roots are vital to the tree. 

These principles will be found to be as logical and as 
philosophical as they are practical. ^They are not only 
attested by the history of twenty years ; they are thor- 
oughly in accord with the latest researches of the scien- 
tific man who has studied the soul of the child. He 

111 



Training the Church of the Future 

says: "The period of youth is incomparably the most 
important of all." The Christian Endeavor Society 
says: "I will do my best to mold and form and trans- 
form the youth." 

The psychologist says: " At adolescence the spirit as 
well as the mind and body grows with marvelous rapid- 
ity. Then the soul opens to the eternal ; then, if ever, 
conversion will occur." 

This young people's movement says: "All my efforts 
shall be concentrated upon making plain to the adoles- 
cent the way into the kingdom of God, and fixing in his 
life habits of rational confession of Christ and faithful 
service of Christ." 

The modern psychologist says: "The cure for the 
spiritual diseases of youth, which are as inevitable as 
measles and chickenpox, and, alas ! far more lasting in 
their effects and often fatally destructive to a whole- 
some religious life, is found in inducing wholesome 
activity. " 

The Young People's Society says: "I will bend all my 
energies and use all my wits and resources to provide just 
such natural, wholesome, religious activity." 

A society thus organized and based upon these princi- 
ples serves the church in three distinct ways: It is a 
stepping-stone to the church, a training-school in the 
church, and a watch-tower for the church and pastor. 

As a stepping-stone to the church it often bridges the 
dangerous gap between conversion and church member - 

112 



Y. P. S. C. E. as Training-School of Church 

ship. In some denominations quite an interval here is 
allowed to elapse. It is thought that children, at least, 
must be tested to see whether their new-found faith 
and hope is a passing emotion or an enduring life 
purpose. One of the most dangerous periods for any 
young Christian is this period of waiting to declare 
to the world his purpose. Especially is this true in 
churches where there is no particular provision made 
for probationers. 

The young convert before church membership is really 
a probationer, and everything should be done to establish 
him in the faith, to develop his Christian character, and 
to insure the beginning of Christian activity. The mor- 
tar sets very rapidly in these early days. The whole 
bent and trend of the Christian life for fifty years are 
often determined in the first fifty days after conversion. 
If the young person begins his Christian life as an out- 
spoken confessor of Christ, as an earnest worker in some 
branch of the church, if he begins by forming habits 
of prayer and Bible-reading and church loyalty, these 
practises will become fixed, the blessed influence of 
good habit — which, thank God, is as strong as bad 
habit — will come to the rescue, and throughout all his 
years his Christian life will show the impress of its 
earliest days. 

This is exactly what the Society of Christian Endeav- 
or attempts to do for its members who have just en- 
tered upon the Christian life. It at once takes them into 
8 113 



Training the Church of the Future 

its warm embrace. It at once gives them a confession to 
make and a work to do. It at once surrounds them with 
congenial young friends who are walking the same road 
Zion-ward. It enables them to take the first step toward 
full church membership. To be sure, some churches re- 
quire that none but church members shall be active 
members of the young people's society. Some do not 
think that this is invariably a good rule, but it makes 
little practical difference, for the young convert, tho not 
an active member, can come very speedily into some rela- 
tion to the society ; can there make some confession and 
do some work for his Lord. 

In the second place, such a society is a training-school 
within the church ; I do not need to dwell further upon 
this point, since the importance of training as distinct 
from teaching has already been discussed. I would 
simply call attention to the many ways of training which 
are provided in the society — training in public prayer 
and confession of the very simplest but yet sincerest 
sort ; training in work for others on the lookout and so- 
cial committees ; training in preparation for the prayer- 
meeting on the prayer -meeting committee; training in 
temperance and missionary zeal and different sorts of 
Sunday-school work, and such humble ministrations 
as obtaining flowers for the pulpit and comforts for 
the sick, and running on errands for the pastor — all of 
which are embraced in the multifarious committees 

of many societies. In fact, the possibilities of the so- 

114 



Y. P. S. C. E. as Training-School of Church 

ciety as a training-school are only limited by the in- 
genuity of the pastor and the time and capacity of the 
members. 

In the third place, as a watch-tower for the church the 
society serves a most important purpose. Through this 
agency the church may know the religious status of each 
one of its young people. The monthly roll-call meeting, 
which is almost a universal feature in these societies, is 
a great help in this direction, for thus, at least once a 
month, the pastor can hear his young Christians, called 
by name, renew their allegiance to their Lord in some 
simple and appropriate way ; or, if they are derelict to 
this self-imposed duty, he can find out the cause of their 
unfaithfulness. The lookout committee may be of very 
great assistance to the pastor in this direction, keeping 
him posted concerning the members of the society and 
giving him the clue to the religious life of many of the 
young people of which he would otherwise know but 
little. 

As a pastor I felt that none could slip away from the 
outward performance of duty which usually precedes or 
accompanies inward unfaithfulness, without my knowl- 
edge of the fact. I felt in a certain sense as tho I stood 
with my hands on the shoulders of each of the hundred 
active members of my young people's society, and that 
no one of them could escape that friendly grasp without 
my knowledge. 

Thousands of pastors have assured me that their ex- 
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Training the Church of the Future 

perience was the same, and I believe it is not too much 
to say that any society in which a pastor takes a constant 
and affectionate interest will prove to be his watch-tower, 
his training-school, as well as pathway for a multitude of 
youth into all church activities. 



116 



OTHER TRAINING CLASSES IN THE 
CHRISTIAN ENDEAVOR SOCIETY 



Chapter IV 



OTHEE TRAINING CLASSES IN THE CHEIS- 
TIAN ENDEAVOE SOCIETY 

THE TWO FOCI — THE OLD IDEA OP THE PRAYER-MEETING — EDIFI- 
CATION VERSUS PRACTISE — SETTING YOUNG PEOPLE AT WORK — 
THE ESSENCE OF THE PLEDGE — LATER DEVELOPMENTS OF THE 
SOCIETY — ITS CONVENTIONS — THE MISSIONARY IDEA — THE JUNIOR 
SOCIETY — THE QUIET HOUR — BIBLE STUDY — PHILANTHROPIC EF- 
FORT — FLOATING SOCIETIES — PRISON WORK — VARIOUS FORMS OF 
ACTIVITY — ORGANIZED EFFORT: NATIONAL, STATE, AND LOCAL — 
MORE ABOUT JUNIOR SOCIETIES — INTERMEDIATE SOCIETIES — A 
NATURAL EVOLUTION — CAUSES OF PARTIAL FAILURE — OBJEC- 
TIONS — CUTTING THE CHURCH TO PIECES— HOW UNITY IS PRO- 
MOTED THROUGH THE SOCIETY— OBJECTIONS TO THE PRAYER- 
MEETING AND THE PLEDGE — LARGER COOPERATION — THE 
NATIONS AND THE DENOMINATIONS — HOW THE SOCIETY PROMOTES 
DEMOCRACY — FIVE THINGS A DENOMINATION MUST DO TO BE 
SAVED— ACTUAL STATISTICS — AN APPEAL TO BROTHER MINISTERS. 

Let us see how these principles are wrought out in 
practise. It was seen that the distinctive features of the 
Christian Endeavor movement clustered naturally about 
two foci, the prayer-meeting and the committees, and 
yet these two foci are really only one, for they are both 
different forms of Christian activity. Confession of 
Christ is one form and a most important form of Christian 
service. Service along the lines of the different commit- 
tees is at the same time confession that one is Christ's 

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and is trying to do His will. But for the sake of con- 
venience it may be well to consider for a few moments 
these two forms of activity separately. 

It must be admitted at the outset that the young peo- 
ple's meeting, based on the prayer-meeting pledge which 
requires some participation from all, is a radical depart- 
ure from the old prayer-meeting idea. Most of the ob- 
jections to the modern young people's prayer-meeting 
and to the covenant pledge which is its backbone and 
chief support, have come because this is not understood. 
The old-fashioned idea of the prayer-meeting has been 
imported into the new-fashioned prayer-meeting, and the 
old wine does not agree with the new bottles. 

The old prayer-meeting idea is the idea of instruction, 
of " edification. " It is really a continuation by the pas- 
tor and two or three gifted laymen, of the Sunday 
preaching service. The one test imposed upon those who 
take part is, "Can he speak to edification ? " — not will he 
receive benefit from the service, but will he instruct, 
arouse, and stimulate others % The result of this idea is 
well known. In some churches the prayer-meeting be- 
came simply a lecture. The minister prepared another 
sermon, a little less elaborate, perhaps, and with a little 
less care than the Sunday sermon, and delivered it usu- 
ally to a very few of the saints on a Wednesday or a 
Thursday evening. In most churches he was assisted by 
two or three or half a dozen of those who, it was thought, 
could "edify" the brethren. They were often the glib 

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and the ready, but not always the profound or the most 
earnest. 

The young people's meeting of modern times is based 
on a wholly different principle. Its primary thought is 
not instruction of others but confession of Christ by all. 
The young convert does not say, "I will speak if I have 
something interesting or eloquent to say, " but, " I will 
speak, however trembling and hesitating and common- 
place my word, because it is my confession of love to my 
Lord ; if I have no word of my own to speak I will use 
the words of another which express my feelings. I will 
find in the Scriptures a verse that declares my love. 
Tho I can not offer a long and eloquent prayer I have a 
desire for a blessing, and to this I will give voice in a 
single sentence. ]!^o one will be instructed, perhaps, by 
what I have to say or be any the wiser from a literary 
or theologic standpoint, but I am at least willing they 
should know that I am a disciple, and I can at least open 
my Bible and bring to the meeting a draught from the 
wells of salvation. " 

That is the idea which underlies the modern young peo- 
ple's meeting and which has made it such a radical de- 
parture from the prayer-meeting of the past as carried 
on in most churches. I am not decrying the old prayer - 
meeting. It had its place and perhaps still has its place, 
in many churches, but I do say that there is need and 
urgent need of the new prayer-meeting, the prayer-meet- 
ing in which all may participate; the prayer-meeting 

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whose chief idea is not to instruct somebody else, but to 
gain strength to one's own soul and give help to others 
by the simplest forms of confession of Christ. 

The idea of instruction and edification came very near 
capturing the young people's prayer-meeting. In fact, 
the old-fashioned young people's prayer-meeting was 
simply a weak and limp duplicate of the other prayer- 
meeting of the church. It has been described, not un- 
justly, in these words: 

"The notice was given from the pulpit that the young 
people's meeting would be held at the usual hour. 
When the usual hour arrived it required a great stretch 
of courtesy and an extensive winking at gray hairs and 
wrinkles to consider the majority of those present any 
longer ' young people ' except by brevet. The one 
warm spot in the room was often the air-tight stove. 
One of the more elderly young men usually occupied the 
chair. By no possibility was it a young woman, and 
there were many most excruciating pauses which could 
only be filled up by a frequent resort to the overworked 
hymn-book. " 

I am far from saying that all young people's meetings 
are accurately described in the foregoing paragraph, but 
I can call a multitude of witnesses to testify that a great 
many young people's meetings could thus be described 
without a particle of exaggeration. Very evidently 
there was a fault somewhere, and I do not hesitate to say 
that fault lay at the very basis of the prayer-meeting 

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idea for young people in many churches. For gener- 
ations the idea of "edification" was the fetish of the 
young people's prayer-meeting. It came near being its 
utter ruin. No one was expected to take part who could 
not " speak to edification," and the remains of this idea, 
frayed and torn as they are, are still the bane of many 
a prayer-meeting in all parts of the world. The result 
has been that the prayer-meeting has fallen often into 
the hands of the long-winded, who have a gift at ser- 
monizing, or who fancy they have, or into the hands of 
the hobby-rider, and with all its efforts after edification 
it has been neither edifying, instructive, nor stimulating. 

The Society of Christian Endeavor started with another 
conception of the young people's prayer- meeting. It 
was a place for practise rather than for preaching ; for 
inspiration and fellowship rather than for instruction ; a 
place for the participation of the average two -talent peo- 
ple rather than of the exceptional ten-talent man and 
woman. Of course the idea of instruction is not to be 
ignored in training Christian character, but it was felt 
that in the preaching service, the Sunday-school, the 
pastor's class, the mid-week meeting of the church, in- 
struction had its full share ; and practise, training, and 
inspiration might claim the young people's meeting. 

Moreover, to young people, at least the latter meeting 
proved the most truly " edifying," tho there was not a 
single long speech and not an attempt at eloquence. 
The fifty or sixty or seventy with their Scripture verses, 

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their simple thought about the subject, aud their sen- 
tence-long prayers, really seemed to edify more than 
extended dissertations and elaborate prayers. 

The other distinctive forms of the society, as I have 
said, is the committees, whose purpose it is to give every 
member, however young and inexperienced, some defi- 
nite and appropriate task. This is no easy undertaking. 
Few churches have ever been organized minutely or sys- 
tematically. The principle of natural selection, not to 
say the survival of the fittest, has had full play in most 
of our churches. Those were allowed to do the church 
work who had peculiar adaptabilities for it, who had 
special consecration, and who were not hampered by 
bashfulness or diffidence. The work of the church was 
in as few hands as the prayer-meeting of old. Many 
strong churches could, and can to-day, count their real 
workers upon the fingers of two hands — many churches 
reputed strong, I should say, for I do not believe that 
any church whose work is done by one -tenth or one- 
f ortieth of its members is really a vigorous church. 

The Sunday-school did much to remedy this state of 
affairs by affording opportunity for a band of devoted 
men and women to instruct the children. The ladies' 
societies for home and foreign work utilized more of the 
talent of the church, but there was still little given the 
rank and file of the young people to do. The society of 
Christian Endeavor set itself seriously to this task, and 
I think may be said in a measurable degree to have ac- 

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complished it by giving every member something defi- 
nite, appropriate, and fitted to his years to do for Christ. 

Of course I do not claim for it perfection or that it has 
fully accomplished this most serious task, but that it 
has made an honest attempt in this direction, and that it 
has set millions of young people at some definite 
Christian work who otherwise would not have found 
their sphere, is not an empty boast. 

The covenant pledge, which has been such an impor- 
tant and prominent feature in the history of the Chris- 
tian Endeavor movement, has this for its purpose: To 
help every one to serve. The essence of it is really all 
in its first clause: " Trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ for 
strength, I promise Him that I will strive to do whatever 
He would like to have me do. " The rest is but an am- 
plification of this phrase. 

The young Christian believes that his Lord would like 
to have him spend some time daily in prayer and Bible 
reading ; that he would like to have him be loyal to his 
church duties ; that he would like to have him confess 
his name before men in natural phrase and in appropri- 
ate places ; that he would like to have him do appropri- 
ate work along the lines of church activity — these things 
the active member of the society promises to do, at the 
same time always putting the proviso into his covenant, 
"Unless prevented by a reason which I can conscien- 
tiously give to the Master. " If at any special time he 
believes his Lord would not have him do these things, 

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he is absolved from his promise, but he seeks no lesser 
excuse. When the pledge is thoroughly understood I 
believe that most of its objections will disappear. It is 
said by some to put a premium upon the expression of 
religious life, but this expression is so simple and nat- 
ural, it is so well guarded in various ways, that it can be 
no burden to the earnest, conscientious soul. Besides, 
this is only one form of Christian activity, and it is so 
recognized in the pledge ; it is one of the things which 
Christ would have His followers do, confess Him before 
men, but the pledge applies to the Christian life and to 
the duties of the church with equal solemnity. I do not 
believe, when the pledge is understood and analyzed, 
and especially when its workings are seen under natural 
conditions, that it can be objected to by any reasonable 
Christian worker. But, as I have before said, no form of 
words is obligatory. Every pastor is at liberty to make 
his own pledge, if he keeps to the essentials, for the one 
fundamental idea of the movement is that the society 
is to be and do what its church wishes. 

The later developments of the Christian Endeavor 
movement are all the natural outgrowth of the ideas im- 
planted in the first society. It is interesting to see how 
entirely natural, almost inevitable, these developments 
have been. 

I. Its conventions. The society soon made its way 
into churches of various denominations. Some ecclesi- 
astics in two or three denominations took alarm and 

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tried to crush the movement out of their own churches. 
They only partially succeeded, however, and the fellow- 
ship continued to grow, until twenty, thirty, fifty de- 
nominations were embraced in the ever-widening circle. 

Then what was more natural than that alliances of 
friendship and fellowship should spring up between 
those who were bound together with so many ties of com- 
mon methods of service ? At once there arose a demand 
for an expression of this fellowship. This has been sat- 
isfied in large part by the different conventions, national, 
State, and local, which have been such a conspicuous and 
remarkable feature of the religious life of the young in 
these later days. There was no prearranged purpose to 
establish this fellowship or to promote these overwhelm- 
ing gatherings of young Christians, where from twenty 
to sixty thousand every year come together. They came 
because the movement had come ; unpredicted and un- 
planned they came, because God's time had come to en- 
large the fellowship of young Christians and to lead them 
to know each other better and thus to love each other 
better. 

But the movement was not confined to American 
churches ; it soon found its way across the sea and estab- 
lished itself thoroughly in Great Britain and Australia, 
in China, India, and Continental Europe, so that there 
came about naturally and also inevitably an international 
relationship which promises to have results as blessed 
and fruitful as the interdenominational fellowship. Not 



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only will the unseemly barriers of denominational jealousy 
and distrust be broken down ; not only will the barbs be 
taken off the wire fences of sectarianism ; but through 
the fellowship and intermingling of the young people of 
different lands who are bound together by the same 
methods of work and the same inspirations to service, 
there will come a new international federation of Chris- 
tians ; glad hands will be given across the sea, and efforts 
for peace and arbitration among the nations, and for the 
spread of the Kingdom of our Lord, will be advanced as 
they could not be were it not for this new bond of inter- 
national fellowship. 

II. Another natural outcome of the movement has been 
the emphasis laid upon the missionary idea. This new 
sense of brotherhood and comradeship brought with it 
a new sense of responsibility for those in darker lands 
than our own. The very fact that there were Endeavor- 
ers by the thousands in India and China, led the young 
people in America to think of the millions in these lands 
who were not Christians, as well as to pray for their 
comrades there. A wonderful impetus to the missionary 
thought has thus been given. "We, too, have brothers 
and sisters in Christian Endeavor," the young people 
have reasoned, "on the other side of the globe — brothers 
and sisters with almond eyes and yellow skins or brown 
skins as the case may be, in strange garb and using a 
strange language, but brothers and sisters nevertheless." 
Every convention for years has rung with the missionary 

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motive, and multitudes of young hearts have been fired 
with the missionary spirit. 

Two particular ways of making concrete and definite 
the missionary idea, called the Tenth Legion and the 
Macedonian Phalanx, are now established features of the 
Christian Endeavor movement. These names may sound 
fanciful, but the thing for which they stand is by no 
means fanciful. The " Tenth Legion," a name reminis- 
cent of Caesar's invincible Tenth Legion, stands for those 
who feel it their duty to give one -tenth of their income for 
the advancement of the Lord's Kingdom. The " Mace- 
donian Phalanx " for those who have heard the Macedo- 
nian cry and have resolved to go over and help their 
brothers, and who support, either as societies or individ- 
uals, some one on the mission field, home or foreign, to 
which they can not go themselves. In this manner a 
great many missionaries, native workers, Bible women, 
students, and orphans are supported by Christian En- 
deavorers who belong to the Phalanx of Christian givers. 

It is known that in some single years more than 
$200,000 have been given through the denominational 
boards by about one-fifth of the Endeavor societies, 
which have reported this matter, and that this is largely 
an "extra asset" of missions is proved by the fact that 
the gifts from young people's sources have increased by 
just about this amount over what was given a few years 
ago, while in the same denominations the gifts from other 

sources for missions have not appreciably increased. It 
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is altogether probable that, if all the returns could be ob- 
tained, it would be found that more than one million 
dollars are given every year for mission and parochial 
purposes by the Christian Endeavor societies of America 
alone. 

III. But the young people have grown older during 
these twenty years. Many young men who began as boys 
in the Junior society have come to years of manhood. 
They can cast their ballot for the rulers of their choice. 
They can have a voice in political affairs. Their religion 
led them to see that they had a duty to the State as well 
as to the church ; that the caucus had a call upon them 
as well as the prayer-meeting ; that they could not be 
good Christians unless they were good citizens. So in- 
evitably this quickening religious life and consciousness 
of numbers, which came with the establishment of the 
societies on a large scale, led to the quickening of the 
civic conscientiousness as well. These ideas of good 
citizenship, too, have been greatly promoted and encour- 
aged in the great conventions. Ten thousand hearts 
have been set on fire by a single ringing address to win 
the country for Christ, and the young men have come to 
see that their Christian Endeavor pledge has something 
to do with hostility to bossism in politics, to the un- 
speakable iniquities of the Tammany regime, to the 
wickedness in lesser cities which is smaller only because 
the cities are smaller than the metropolis, and the slogan 
of Christian citizenship and civic righteousness has 

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sounded out a note which, I believe, will never call a 
retreat. The " Christian Endeavor Civic Club " is the 
latest embodiment of this idea. 

Again we see that this is no strange graft budded on 
the Christian Endeavor tree ; it is no abnormal idea fast- 
ened upon it as the French fastened paper cherry blos- 
soms on their oak-trees to welcome the Czar in Novem- 
ber, but it is the entirely natural, if not inevitable, 
outgrowth of the original impulse to a larger, more 
consecrated, and more active Christian life. 

IV. Another entirely natural development of the so- 
ciety is called "The Quiet Hour." Millions of Christian 
Endeavorers, not less than ten millions all told, probably, 
have promised during these twenty years to pray and 
read the Bible every day. But it was very soon seen 
that, valuable, nay, indispensable as it is to Christian 
growth to form the habit of prayer and Bible reading, 
tho the habit of devotion tided the soul over from a time 
of drought to one of blessing, yet the kind and quality 
of prayer and Bible reading were most important. 

Perfunctory, routine prayers are not sufficient to sat- 
isfy the ardent young soul, and when the suggestion was 
made that he should spend some moments every day in 
quietness and contemplation, that he should have a Quiet 
Hour with his God, and strive to win back what has been 
called the "lost art of contemplation," thousands and 
thousands eagerly seized upon the thought and enrolled 
themselves as "Comrades of the Quiet Hour." The im- 

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portance of this feature of the Christian Endeavor society 
can not be measured by the tens of thousands in its 
enrolment, for the idea has entered into the very life of 
the movement. Xo convention is complete without its 
still hour of devotion and communion, and the whole or- 
ganization in every land has been quieted, uplifted, and 
spiritualized by this thought which has so naturally and 
inevitably developed itself in these later years. 

This phase of the movement has given birth to much 
devotional literature. It has introduced young people 
to such writers as Andrew Murray and F. B. Meyer and 
Handley Moule and Cuthbert Hall, and many others of 
like spirit among modern writers, and has brought to the 
attention of many young readers, who otherwise would 
not have made their acquaintance, such ancient classics 
of the Quiet Hour as Thomas a Kempis, John Tauler, 
Andrew Fuller, and Jeremy Taylor. It has reared some 
bulwarks at least against the encroaching tide of com- 
mercialism and materialism, and has led many to train 
their eyes upon the stars, and to see that there are 
worlds of spiritual experiences which can only be seen 
with the compound telescope of faith and meditation. 

I should like to share with my hearers a few of the 
thousands of letters that have come to my desk within 
the last three years from young people who have learned 
the blessed secret of rational contemplation. Many of 
these letters are full of a rapturous joy that such an un- 
known continent has been discovered ; that the veil has 

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been lifted between them and the heavenlies, and that it 
was possible for them as well as the saints of old to 
" practise the presence of God." 

V. But Bible reading as well as prayer has always been 
a feature of the Christian Endeavor movement from its 
earliest day to the present. The habit of daily Bible 
reading I believe to be invaluable to every young Chris- 
tian, even tho there may be months or years when the 
deeper truths of the Word are hidden and its full mean- 
ing is not revealed to the hasty or preoccupied reader. 
Familiarity with the mere shell in which the Spirit has 
hidden the divine truth, is of great worth. But the 
earnest young soul is not long content with the words of 
Scripture ; he will soon want to know its hidden mean- 
ing; he will desire to get at the heart of the gospel. 
And so Bible reading has led to Bible study, and Bible 
study often to a search for the deep things of God. 
Union Bible-study classes have been formed in many 
places, and many individual societies have added this 
feature to their work, while a great number have fol- 
lowed courses of individual Bible study that did not de- 
mand union work. It is known that one course for 
reading the Bible through in a year, intelligently and 
thoughtfully, prepared by a wise and enthusiastic Bible 
student,* enlisted more than ten thousand pupils in one 
year, while every succeeding year it has been followed 
by many others in different parts of the world. 

*Prof. A. R. Wells. 
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VI. It can not be supposed that so many tens of thou- 
sands of eager and devoted young Christians could be 
banded together for worship and religious service without 
having their hearts stirred by the miseries and needs of 
others. One would expect in advance that the philan- 
thropic spirit would early be developed, and one is not 
disappointed as he traces the history of the society. 
Many of these efforts to relieve the distress of mankind 
have been expended upon the local community; the 
young people have striven to do "ye nexte thinge." 
The principle of the society from the beginning has 
been of such loyalty to the local church that first of all 
the charities, benevolences, and philanthropic work of 
the church have engaged the attention of the members. 
But some organized efforts for less-favored classes out- 
side of their own church circle have also been undertaken. 
And this too has all come about in a most natural and 
simple way. Years ago a so-called "Floating Society of 
Christian Endeavor " was formed upon one of the ships 
of the United States Navy ; a few godly young sailors 
came together and organized themselves into such a so- 
ciety. The idea was as taking on the sea as on the laud. 
And at the world's convention in London, Secretary 
Baer was enabled to report one hundred and twenty- 
three of these societies. 

The thought of their brothers on the sea roused the 
young people on the shore to pray and labor for the sail- 
ors, and many have been the libraries and boxes of com- 

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fort-bags which have been sent to Jack Tar in conse- 
quence. An interesting illustration of the value of 
"floating" Christian Endeavor maybe found in Naga- 
saki, Japan. Going ashore at the quay one is confronted 
by a substantial and commodious building over whose 
door is the sign, "Christian Endeavor Seamen's Home." 

It seems that, a few years ago, the cruiser Charleston 
of the United States Navy was lying for several weeks 
in the harbor of Nagasaki. On the Charleston was a 
flourishing society of Christian Endeavor. These Chris- 
tian Jack Tars found that there was no decent place 
in that great city where a sailor could obtain a meal or 
a night's lodging. The city was full of brothels, but 
had no decent cheap lodging-house. They resolved to 
remedy the evil. They mortgaged their own poor wages 
for several months, and raised six hundred dollars among 
themselves. Then they appealed for outside help in 
Nagasaki, and now they have a property worth ten thou- 
sand dollars where every year thousands of soldiers and 
sailors are cared for, and find a decent place of enter- 
tainment when on shore. 

A somewhat similar work has been done along our 
stormy coasts for the brave men of the life-saving sta- 
tions, among whom also a number of societies have been 
established. 

But the most interesting and extensive work of this 
sort perhaps is that done in the prisons throughout the 
country. More than a dozen years ago the first prison 

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society of Christian Endeavor in America was started in 
the Penitentiary of Wisconsin, and one of the most pa- 
thetic messages ever received at a convention was sent to 
the great international meeting in St. Louis, which read : 
"The boys in the only society in the world who can not 
be represented at your meeting if they would, send 
greeting. " 

The chaplain and the warden reported that the society 
did admirable work in the prison ; that discipline was 
easier and the standard of conduct among the men was 
raised ; and that the active members had given genuine 
evidence of conversion, as their future lives have wit- 
nessed. 

The experiment was so successful that it was tried in 
other prisons and reformatories with equally good re- 
sults, and it is now supposed that there are at least two 
thousand active members of Christian Endeavor socie- 
ties in prisons who have given good evidence of conver- 
sion and reformation since they have entered the barred 
gate. 

Of course these facts have aroused great interest among 
Endeavorers who live near these prisons. Different 
State unions have taken up the prison work as part of 
their organized effort. It is difficult to tell whether the 
young people outside have done more for the prisoner 
in giving him heart and hope by their kind remem- 
brances and frequent meetings, or whether the prisoner 
has done more for the young people by awakening their 

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interest in the unfortunate and erring, and unsealing the 
fountains of human kindness and brotherhood. 

VII. In the following list of things actually done by 
the societies in different parts of the country, as culled 
from thousands of letters received in a single year and 
presented by Secretary Baer at one of the conventions, it 
will be seen how multifarious are the efforts of the 
young people and how often their hearts are stirred to 
philanthropic efforts by the wants and woes of others. 
It is published in this connection not so much to show 
what has been done, as to furnish suggestions of what 
may be done : 

"Our good-literature committee has sent books and 
Bibles to the sailors and soldiers, to hospitals and pris- 
ons." 

"Kept three children in school in Oregon who could 
not otherwise have gone." 

"Held gospel meetings in prisons, almshouses, hospi- 
tals, old people's homes, car-stations, engine-houses, and 
wharves. " 

"Furnished dinners to the deserving poor at Christmas 
and Thanksgiving. " 

"Sent a poor family to the country for one week of 
fresh air." 

"Distributed invitations to church in hotels and board- 
ing-houses." 

"Purchased hymn-books, libraries, church organs, and 
all kinds of furniture for the church." 

"Assisted in conducting the Sunday-evening service, 
in many cases taking entire charge. " 

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"We give one night every two weeks for work in a 
mission in the slum district of our city, and go four 
miles every Sunday afternoon to assist in the evangelistic 
service in the jail." 

"Our ' fresh air ' committee arranged eleven picnics, 
sending seven hundred and seventy-nine persons into 
the country, our society contributing one hundred and 
fifty -two dollars to carry on the work in addition to 
supplying all the refreshments." 

"Taken an active part in the local fight against the 
saloon. " 

"Organized, conduct, and support mission Sunday- 
schools in neglected districts in city and country. " 

" Clothed twenty-eight children, thus securing them as 
regular members for our Sunday-school." 

" Conduct meetings at the Seamen's Bethel three nights 
in the month. " 

"Furnish a choir for the mid-week prayer-meeting." 

"Are responsible for a chorus choir for the Sunday- 
evening service." 

" Our Junior society gave a concert at the old ladies' 
home." 

"Publish a church calendar and conduct our church 
paper. " 

"Our entire Junior society has organized itself into a 
committee for the prevention of cruelty to animals." 

"Conduct a weekly prayer-meeting for ' shut-ins.' " 

"Sent comfort-bags to sailors and soldiers." 

" Conduct evangelistic meetings among the soldiers in 
camp. " 

"Support a pupil in a mission school." 

"For ten years have had charge of a special service at 

the old ladies' home." 

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"Bought a new carpet for our church." 
"Secured volunteer nurses for our relief -committee 
work. " 

"Paid off our church debt." 

These various forms of activity — and they might be 
multiplied a thousandfold — show by actual practical ex- 
amples what the young people can do and are glad to do 
when their hearts are touched by the Spirit of God and 
when in their organized capacity they are called upon to 
put their principles of service into practise. 

Most useful in carrying out these special philanthropic 
and evangelistic efforts, as well as for binding the socie- 
ties together in genuine and delightful fellowship, have 
been the unions, local, district, State, and national. 
These are no arbitrary divisions, but are the natural and 
inevitable expressions of the inward fellowship. The 
development of the local Christian Endeavor Union was 
natural and spontaneous. The first Union was started 
in New Haven, Conn., after a number of societies had 
been formed in that university city and some expression 
of their fellowship was needed. 

In many country regions the plans adopted by the city 
union are not available, and so different plans for Dis- 
trict unions or County unions came into vogue where 
they were needed. 

The States form a natural unit of religious effort as 
well as for political legislation and government, and 
every State soon had its Christian Endeavor union whose 

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Training the Church of the Future 

conventions are often superlative in size and interest, 
like the recent Pennsylvania convention of 1900 which 
registered more than seventeen thousand delegates. 

The national union is called the United Society of 
Christian Endeavor. Its executive offices are in Boston, 
and its governing body is a board of trustees, numbering 
about one hundred and consisting of leaders of the dif- 
ferent denominations, who are chosen in proportion to 
the number of societies in these different denominations, 
together with the State and provincial presidents as ex 
officio members of the board. The United Society is in 
no sense a legislative body. It does not control any 
local society in any part of the world. It levies no 
taxes and demands no allegiance, but simply exists to 
promote the fellowship and efficiency of the society. Its 
platform of principles has been affirmed and endorsed 
by more than one international convention. 

JUNIOR SOCIETIES 

It will be seen that most of the work hitherto outlined 
is for the young men and maidens rather than for the 
boys and girls, and yet in the first society we saw that 
there were boys and girls as well as their older brothers 
and sisters. It soon became evident that a distinction 
in age should be made, and that the training of the chil- 
dren required somewhat different methods from the 
training of young men and women. The same principles 
would apply, should be applied, in a different way. 

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Moreover, it has been found that in most cases it was 
better to have a separate meeting for the boys and girls 
under fourteen or fifteen, where they would not be over- 
shadowed by the young men and women, and where they 
would have more time and opportunity to take their part 
in the meetings and do their share of the work of the 
committees. It was also seen that these younger mem- 
bers needed more instruction and more guidance in the 
work that was given them to do. 

So again, naturally and inevitably, without previous 
planning or human foresight, the Junior Christian 
Endeavor societies arose in response to a definite Provi- 
dential call. They came because they were needed in a 
multitude of churches, and for that reason they have 
grown naturally, healthfully, rapidly. The same under- 
lying principles apply as in the young people's societies, 
but they are adapted to the children's needs with all 
the flexibility which is so characteristic of the Christian 
Endeavor society. 

These boys and girls, if they are Christians, are ex- 
pected, as well as their older brothers and sisters, to con- 
fess Christ and work for Him, but it is a confession and 
a service which are entirely adapted to their years and 
powers. The Junior pledge for active members, which 
is a very simple, yet responsible, one, and the Junior 
pledge for preparatory members, which is still simpler, 
and one which any child in the world can take, read as 

follows: 

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^ 



iTINC IN THE IORDJeSUS (HRIST FOR STRENGTH 

;e Him that I will strive to do whatever He would like to have 

;' ! thatlwill pray and read the Bible every day; and that justso 

ft know how,l will try to lead a Christian life. I will be present at every 

10 of theSociety when I can.and will take some part in every meeting. 



''Zs&i&M 



The Junior Pledge for Active Members. 



Christian Ctttreate $tefcge 

/or ^wparatotj ffimbet* 





WILL be present at every meeting 
of the society when I can, and will 
be quiet and reverent during the 
meeting. 



The Junior Pledge for Preparatory Members. 
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Some older person always superintends the Junior so- 
ciety, and upon his or her tact, winsomeness, consecration, 
and persistence largely depends the success of the society. 
It is a splendid tribute to ten thousand wise and devoted 
Junior superintendents that the societies of children have 
for so many years accomplished an increasingly fruitful 
work. Some Junior societies have, to be sure, died for 
lack of a superintendent or because his courage or de- 
votion gave way, but most have lived and gone on from 
strength to strength. 

Of late years another division has proved necessary 
in large churches. It is called the Intermediate Society 
of Christian Endeavor. As the Junior society takes in 
young persons under fourteen years of age, and as those 
between fourteen and eighteen or nineteen are not able 
always to get their full share of training in worship and 
service where there are many older and more experienced 
members present, the Intermediate societies have come 
to fill a real need. They are as natural and as needed as 
an Intermediate department in a large Sunday-school, 
and, just as there are Primary, Intermediate, and Senior 
departments in well -organized Sunday-schools where the 
numbers are sufficient, so there is room for all these de- 
partments of the young people's society. There is, in 
fact, one church in Philadelphia, the celebrated Grace 
Baptist Temple, that has no less than fifteen societies of 
Christian Endeavor for all ages, from the gray-haired 
grandmother to the little flaxen-haired grand-daughter, 

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Training the Church of the Future 

and, through this agency applying its flexible principles 
as may be necessary, all find a chance to express their 
love for Christ in words and in deeds. 

I desire to have it noticed that these different out- 
growths and features of the Christian Endeavor move- 
ment are genuine natural growths and not sporadic flow- 
ers or fruits. They could not have been prevented unless 
the movement itself was crushed and throttled as it has 
been in some cases by denominational zealots. From 
beginning to end it has had a natural, necessary develop- 
ment. The evolution has been entirely orderly. Chris- 
tian growth has not been attempted by any patent sleight- 
of-hand methods. The theories of the doctrinaire have 
not been foisted upon the society, and I know of no one 
who has successfully attempted to use it for selfish pur- 
poses or to advance his own ends. Such attempts have 
been made, but they have met with speedy and ignomin- 
ious failure. It seems to have been peculiarly under the 
guidance of God. His directing finger can be seen in 
every line of its history. By none can this be seen more 
clearly and by none is it more humbly acknowledged 
than by those who with solicitude and anxious care have 
watched its course from the beginning. 

But I hear some one say, "You have presented the 
rosy side of the movement ; you have dwelt upon its suc- 
cesses and advances ; is there not another side ? Have 
there not been difficulties and setbacks and failures'? " 

Most assuredly ; no such movement as this, so exten- 

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sive and wide-sweeping, could always expect a plain and 
easy path. The difficulties that have arisen have largely 
come from four sources : First, the opposition of denomi- 
national authorities, which has resulted in the drawing 
away of some churches in certain sects * from the inter- 
denominational movement. But it has gone on with 
little interruption in its growth, and there seem to be in- 
dications in every denomination, with but one exception, 
of larger fellowship among the young people than in the 
past. Even in this exceptional denomination the ideas 
at least of the Christian Endeavor society have been 
adopted and there seems to be of late in many quarters a 
distinct swinging back to the interdenominational society 
— a tendency that is growing every year. 

The second cause of partial failure has come from the 
lack of genuine Christian Endeavor principles. The so- 
ciety has had to suffer for a great many namesakes that 
were Christian Endeavor societies only in name ; societies 
that had no pledge, little actual service to do for the 
Master, that put small emphasis upon the committees 
even if they had any, and that were not embedded in the 
heart and life of the church as every true society of 
Christian Endeavor should be. Every organization of 
every sort, the Christian Church itself not excepted, has 
to bear the reproach of its own weak and unworthy or- 
ganizations and members. 

* The first denominational societies of the same kind were formed 
some seven years after the Endeavor movement began. 
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Training the Church of the Future 

The indifference of some pastors and the coldness of 
some chnrches have been from the beginning a source of 
weakness and an almost insuperable obstacle. The 
young people of a church can not be expected to rise 
very much above the spiritual level of the older mem- 
bers. The mercury in their thermometer will stand at 
about the same degree of temperature as in the ther- 
mometer of the older church ; or if for a time they have 
more warmth it is not apt long to withstand the absor- 
bent influence of the neighboring iceberg. When it is 
declared that the young people's society is a failure total 
or partial, it is always in order to ask: "Of what sort of 
a church is it a part and whom does it have for a pas- 
tor t " I do not say that the trouble can always be lifted 
from off its own shoulders, but I do say that I have 
known very few young people's societies to fail that 
were guided by warm, loving, sympathetic pastors. 

In a recent notable article Mr. Eobert Speer, of the 
Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions, has written as 
follows : 

"Is there not a risk in our constant emphasis on the 
truth that the young people should be loyal to the 
Church, of losing sight of another truth quite as impor- 
tant in my judgment, even more important, namely, the 
Church's loyalty to the young people? A great deal has 
been said on the one side, and the young people have 
not been allowed to lose sight of the duty of loyalty 
which they owe to their church and their pastor. But 

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loyalty is not a quality to be stated in terms of duty. 
It is the spontaneous expression of the true and natural 
devotion of the heart, and no amount of injunction or 
entreaty will ever produce loyalty in hearts in which it 
does not spring up as an answer to sympathy and friend- 
liness. No father would think of teaching his little child 
to love him and be loyal to him by neglecting his child 
and lecturing it for any lack of a display of affection 
and fidelity. The father wins the child's love by loving 
it. He guarantees the child's care for him by caring for 
the child. It is the father's loyalty to the child that 
issues in the child's utter loyalty to the father. 

" The churches and pastors who have trouble with the 
loyalty of their young people are usually those who have 
never set about winning the confidence and fidelity of 
their young people. It is the genius of young hearts to 
seek and follow a leader and to worship their heroes. 
The church that goes to its young people, that cares for 
them, that gives them worthy service to do, and recog- 
nizes their work will never want love and loyalty from 
its children. There may be exceptions, of course, in 
local congregations, just as there are in families. A 
father's loyalty does not inevitably produce a son's 
loyalty in return. But the only true way of winning 
the son's loyalty is through the father's love and care." 

One other source of weakness is undoubtedly the 
worldliness of young people. This is a source of weak- 
ness common of course to the church and the society of 

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Training the Church of the Future 

which it is a part. I very much fear that this spirit of 
worldliness is increasing, and that more difficulties from 
this source are to be feared in the future than in the 
past. I scarcely see how it can be otherwise when nomi- 
nally Christian families, so many more than in years past, 
patronize and uphold doubtful worldly amusements, train 
their children by example if not by precept to hold their 
religion lightly and to seek mammon as well as God. The 
growing worldliness of a section of the church I think 
can not be gainsaid, and he who calls attention to it and 
mourns over it does not deserve the name of pessimist. 

Worldly parents will have worldly children. The law 
of spiritual heredity is more certain than that of physi- 
cal heredity. It is more certain that religiously indiffer- 
ent parents will preside over religiously indifferent 
households than that blue -eyed fathers and mothers will 
have a blue-eyed flock of children. Where the whole 
church is indifferent and worldly the young people's so- 
ciety has a hard field indeed. It either gives up the 
ghost altogether, or lingers on, helpful to and beloved by 
a fraction of the younger membership, while the "fash- 
ionable" people, which is often another name for the 
worldly, look down with a pitying condescension upon 
its members as those who are "unco guid" or "righteous 
overmuch. " Yet it is Burns, the author of the former 
expression, who also says : 

"An Atheist's laugh's a poor exchange 
For Deity offended ! " 
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Objections 

The objections to the society are often urged honestly 
with a sincere desire that the objections may be removed ; 
sometimes they seem to be offered in a spirit of captious- 
ness and petty fault-finding. Whatever may be their 
motive, it is not out of place to spend a few moments in 
considering them. 

These objections usually cluster about two points: 
First, it is said in many different ways and with many 
changes rung upon the same theme, that the society di- 
vides the church into sections, "chops the church into 
bits, " as some one has graphically expressed it ; separ- 
ates the young from the old, the children from their 
elders, giving one set of interests to one class and an- 
other set to another. Two -thirds of the objections which 
are urged in print and in private may be traced back to 
this root. But I would ask, if the real tap-root of this 
objection does not run much further down than the 
Young People's Society of Christian Endeavor? Is not 
this matter that is complained of really a distinction in 
nature and not in any organization ? In fact, when God 
allowed some people to grow old before others ; when He 
allowed some children to be born in 1850 and others in 
1880 and others in 1890, did He not plant all the distinc- 
tions that are now observed in the church life of the 
young and the old and the middle-aged 1 The same dis- 
tinctions run through family life and school life. There 

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Training the Church of the Future 

must be a nursery as well as a parlor and a study in the 
complete household. There is a primary department, 
a grammar school, a high school, and a college for those 
who would have a thorough education. No wise parent 
insists on living with all the children in one common 
room for fear that the family will be broken up. No 
teacher tears down the partitions and merges all the 
classes into one common schoolroom in order to promote 
unity of instruction. The great advantage of the modern 
graded school over the old-fashioned district school where 
the A-B-C class and the advanced class in algebra all 
studied in the same room, and where there were often 
more classes than scholars, is that now the pupils are 
graded and separated according to their years and abil- 
ity. Each one gains vastly more than under the old 
regime. In fact, there is more real unity in the school 
when thus divided and graded than in the old days. 

The family is not divided and split up into fragments 
because the father goes to his office, the mother to her 
housework, the children to school or to the ball -ground. 
It would be absurd and irrational to make this claim. 
The family all come together at the dinner-table and 
around the evening fire; they have a thousand oppor- 
tunities of showing their real unity, and their interest 
and affection one for another is not weakened but 
strengthened because sometimes they go their separate 
ways, only to come together again before the day is over 
in the common family circle. 

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Nor is the church really divided, when the Juniors 
have a meeting for an hour once a week by themselves, 
and the young people have their own weekly hour of 
prayer and praise and their own activities, and the older 
people sometimes have meetings for missionary or ben- 
evolent purposes that especially appeal to their inter- 
ests as well. The church family, like the household, 
separates only to reunite. It has its common interest, 
its common meeting -places. The Lord's Supper brings 
all around one common board. The morning service and 
the evening service of Sunday are alike for all. And in 
spirit and purpose, in common aims and aspirations and 
prayers, there is a cord of union which is a thousand 
times stronger than any mere physical union, at every 
service of the Lord's house. 

In fact the lack of activity on the part of the young 
in the olden days, their comparative deadness and 
indifference, were due to the mistaken notion that 
there could not be different meeting-places and differ- 
ent methods for doing the Lord's work. In many 
churches the apostle's declaration was forgotten that 
there were " differences of operations but the same 
spirit," and as a result young people's societies and 
meetings were frowned upon, and little Johnny and his 
older brother and his stalwart father and his wrinkled 
old grandfather were all treated to the same spiritual 
pabulum in the weekly meeting — a kind of food which 
the grandfather relished and usually served, but which 



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Training the Church of the Future 

did not foster Johnny's growth, in grace to any great 
extent. 

If it is true, and it certainly is, that what God hath 
joined together no man should put asunder, it is equally 
true that what God hath put asunder through age and 
natural inclination and adaptability to similar service, 
no man should join together in an arbitrary and mechan- 
ical way. 

The most common objection on this score of division, 
or at least the one that lies at the basis of many others, 
is the fact that young people are sometimes seen leaving 
the evening preaching service of Sunday after their own 
meeting ' when that meeting comes immediately before 
this service. This objection, while sometimes valid, is 
often a superficial and a selfish one. The questions to 
be considered are not, Do some young j>eople go away? 
but, Are there not probably more present than there 
would be were there no young people's meeting ? Are the 
young people as faithful as the older church members ? 
Are there not some reasons which may make absence 
from the service not only excusable but necessary? 
Many households have to divide their forces ; some going 
to one service and some to another. Some of the younger 
ones ought to be at home and a-bed rather than at the later 
service, and no pastor's heart need burn nor his indigna- 
tion rise until he finds out whether there are not valid 
and conscientious reasons why all can not hear his second 
sermon for the day. 

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After all, fellow students and preachers, there is a 
good deal of human nature and some remnants of the 
old Adam left, even in us ministers, we must confess it, 
and the fact that it is our evening sermon which is not 
heard rather than the worship of God's house that is not 
enjoyed, often enters into our disappointment when some 
one is seen leaving the church. The very fact that 
it is called commonly the " second service " is an indica- 
tion of the significance it assumes in many minds. The 
Sunday-school is in most churches the second service; 
the mission meeting in the outskirts is often the third 
service; the young people's meeting is not infrequently 
the fourth service, and the second sermon is the fifth 
service of the day. 

But I am prepared to claim that the young people's 
movement has as a rule increased and strengthened this 
service, whether it be second, third, fourth, or fifth. On 
two different occasions I have gathered careful statistics 
on this point which prove that in proportion to their 
elders who are also church members the active members 
of the societies of Christian Endeavor attend the evening 
preaching service in the proportion of nearly two to one. 
These are not random or hasty figures, but have been ob- 
tained with care from many denominations and from 
many parts of the country. 

The same thing is true in a large measure, tho not quite 
in such a marked degree, of the mid-week meeting of 
the church. 

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Training the Church of the Future 

In fact, I believe it can be fairly claimed that the 
young people's movement has promoted the unity of the 
church. It has shown it its essential oneness. It has led 
the young people to feel their obligations to the other 
services of the church as well as to the church services of 
their own society, for they are all church services. 
With the gradation has come unity, harmony, and loyalty, 
for, from the first day of the Christian Endeavor move- 
ment, this thought of loyalty, loyalty to the local 
church, to the denomination and all its work, has been 
one of the cardinal features of the organization. 

The other center of objection to the society of Chris- 
tian Endeavor has been the character of its meetings, 
and the prayer-meeting pledge which has largely made 
them what they are. This is not strange since, as I have 
before tried to show, the young people's prayer-meeting 
is a radical departure in many ways from the old prayer- 
meeting idea. It substituted the thought of practise, 
training, and the edification that comes from personal 
participation for the old idea of instruction and edifica- 
tion from the teachings and experience of others. In 
other words, it substituted the many for the few — the 
idea of training for the idea of teaching in this particu- 
lar service. 

No wonder that such a departure from tradition should 
provoke objections. The only answer to such objections, 
and the amply sufficient one as it seems to me, is, "This 
plan works well in practise. " Is it not an undeniable 

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fact that the young people's meeting of to-day is more 
largely attended and more influential, more bright and 
interesting, warmer and more spiritual, than ever before % 
Has it not introduced into tens of thousands of churches 
a new and needed element in training and exercising the 
forces of youth? Whatever theoretical objections or 
real objections in individual cases there may be, how- 
ever scrappy or inconsequential, however stumbling or 
halting, however perfunctory at times, making all dis- 
counts and allowances for not reaching the ideal which 
we desire, is it not true that these meetings are, after all, 
in nine cases out of ten, perhaps in ninety -nine cases out 
of one hundred, centers of genuine spiritual life and 
warmth and outreaching activity? Would not all of 
these advantages be vastly diminished if these meetings 
were given up or essentially changed in their character. 
I think the answer, if the pastors and young people 
throughout the country alike could be heard from, would 
be almost a unanimous and even vociferous, Yes! In 
fact, some such questions as these have recently been 
asked of the pastors throughout the country; many 
thousands have replied, and their answers have been 
overwhelmingly in favor of the society and the meeting 
which it advocates. 

The pledge, being largely responsible for the new de^ 
parture in the young people's prayer-meeting, has of 
course come in for its share of objection and sometimes 
objurgation, but I think that it is its letter rather than its 



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Training the Church of the Future 

spirit that has been criticized. Every pastor is at liberty 
to write his own pledge for his own young people. The 
one commonly used is a suggestion of a possible model 
rather than a form obligatory upon all. In this matter, 
as in concerns of more serious moment, the letter killeth, 
the Spirit giveth life, and the spirit of the Christian En- 
deavor pledge is that of obligation made so definite and 
simple that the young heart shall feel the bond and real- 
ize the vow. Obligation to take time for personal relig- 
ious duties, obligation to confess Christ openly and 
frequently, obligation to be loyal to His church and 
His service, obligation to bring every duty and every 
excuse to the touchstone, "What would Jesus have 
me do % " — surely no Christian who desires the growth 
of the young in grace and manhood can do any- 
thing but rejoice that such obligations are presented, 
pressed home, and for the most part so willingly ac- 
cepted and so faithfully performed! These obliga- 
tions are all in the church covenant, and he who would 
object to the Christian Endeavor covenant must, in 
consistency, object to the church covenants of all 
denominations, which covenants, as a matter of fact, 
embrace much more than the Christian Endeavor 
pledge. 

And now, in closing these lectures, may I be allowed 
to urge those who have so patiently and kindly given me 
their attention to support and carry out as they have op- 
portunity the principles that have been advocated — 

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adopting and adapting them as circumstances indicate is 
the will of God? 

I am pursued by the fear that I may have seemed to 
be advocating this Society because of personal pride or 
glory in an organization. I hope and pray that my 
purpose is larger and my motive purer. I urge the 
adoption of these principles and the support of this 
movement for reasons that I hope will appeal to all of 
you. At the risk of repetition let me recapitulate them : 

In the first place, the Christian Endeavor movement 
makes for the fellowship and unity of Christians the 
country over and the world around. It is undoubtedly 
another tie that binds our hearts in Christian love. The 
seal of God has been set in a remarkable manner upon 
this feature of the work. Since He has found a way of 
promoting loyalty to one's own church and fellowship 
with those of other folds, can we lightly disregard this 
road to essential Christian unity which His finger so 
clearly points out? 

If we heard a voice from heaven commanding larger 
cooperation and unification through such an organiza- 
tion ; if we found such a command written in a book 
which we believed inspired ; we should hesitate long be- 
fore disregarding it. Has not God written His approval 
of the fellowship born of the Christian Endeavor move- 
ment in characters just as unmistakable 1 ? Can we disre- 
gard or oppose such providential leadings lest haply we 

be found to fight against God % But the movement in 

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God's providence is not simply between the denomina- 
tions of one country, but one that promotes the fellow- 
ship of Christians in every land. The unity which God 
intends has a wider sweep and scope than any of us at 
first supposed. Young English-speaking Christians have 
had a link of fellowship forged between them all in 
America, Great Britain, Australasia, South Africa, such 
as never has been welded before. 

It was an American boy that flew the kite that carried 
the first cord across the Niagara Eiver which was the 
means of uniting the two countries, the United States 
and Canada, with that marvel of engineering skill, the 
first suspension bridge. In that bridge, in the wire 
bands of the ocean cable, in the steamships that unite 
countries which since the world began were separated, 
we see God's providence in bringing the nations together. 
Shall we not also recognize His good hand in uniting at 
the same time with spiritual ties His people for their 
future conquests! This new century, before its history 
is told, will need to develop to the utmost every force 
that can work for righteousness against unrighteousness, 
for God against greed, for law against lawlessness, for 
Christ against Beelzebub, and will need to unite all the 
forces that will range themselves on the side of the 
King. Here in the Christian Endeavor movement is one 
of the world's unifiers. Here is one of the ties that bind 
our hearts in Christian love for Christian service. Can 
any one then afford to be indifferent to a movement which 

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promises to have a part, if only a modest part, in the 
lining-np of the righteous forces of the world ? Can we 
afford to let sectarian pride or indifference or prejudice, 
or some unfortunate experience in local work, prevent 
us from entering heartily and fully into a work which 
God seems to indicate may mean so much for the new 
century ? 

Again, the indications of Providence seem to show 
that this movement will make, not only for the fellow- 
ship of the churches, but also for democracy in the indi- 
vidual church. Already it has accomplished not a little 
in this direction. In an unusual way in the young peo- 
ple's meetings the rich and the poor meet together. The 
simple methods of testimony and prayer, the service 
that is made possible for the youngest and the most illit- 
erate and backward as well as for the brightest and best 
educated, tend in a remarkable degree to a democracy 
which our churches often sorely need to cultivate. 

If there is any hateful spirit in the church it is the 
caste spirit; the Devil is not only the father of lies, but 
the father of caste distinctions. One of the saddest 
things that I have seen in this young people's movement 
is the way in which some members of so-called aristocratic 
churches hold aloof from it, and in which sometimes 
the college graduate and the rich and cultured young 
man will look down upon his brothers and sisters with 
their simple confession and sometimes ungrammatical 
testimony. 

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Let us sweep all such tawdry travesties of the religion 
of the meek and lowly Jesus out of our churches. Let 
us welcome any organization or any movement that will 
tend to remove from our churches the ancient "gold 
ring " scandal which is as old as the time of St. James 
and as low-bred as the Evil One himself. 

Sometimes I hear even a minister say, with a slightly 
patronizing air, that his young people's society does 
very well for the lower stratum, for the lower middle or 
the upper middle, according to the snobbish class nomen- 
clature of some people, but that it does not take hold 
of the educated and the well-to-do — he usually means 
the fashionable and the worldly ; and this is not to be 
wondered at. But I have yet to find the first earnest 
Christian, whether rich or poor, educated or uneducated, 
who can not find help in the sincere, heartfelt testimonies 
of others, and joy in serving with them. The whole ten- 
dency, as I say, is to level these distinctions, to make 
the gold ring and the fine apparel of less consequence, 
and to establish and make sure the democracy of Chris- 
tian believers without which the church will soon lose 
its grip on average humanity. To promote and increase 
this spirit, then, I ask for earnest enlistment in our 
movement, which is one that God is using to this end. 

As has been finely said by another, the Society 
furnishes to the young persons "a program of Chris- 
tianity." Its pledge tells the boy or girl just what it is 
to be a Christian — trust in Christ, personal devotion, 

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loyalty to His church, confession of love to Him, service 
for Him. 

Once more, it does not savor of boasting, I believe, to 
say that the society not only promotes the fellowship and 
the democracy of young disciples, but also their activity 
in Christian service. These lectures have been of little 
value if that has not been demonstrated. But I need 
not rely upon my own impressions or observations. The 
overwhelming testimony of pastors and active church 
workers is to the same effect. The crying need of many 
of our churches is some appropriate Christian work for 
each of its members. The Society of Christian En- 
deavor, when properly organized, furnishes just such 
appropriate service for every one of its members. Many 
of our non- liturgical churches are constantly losing mem- 
bers to the Episcopal Church, which is being built up in 
many communities at the expense of the others. One 
secret of its success is that it quickly furnishes some oc- 
cupation for all its members from the choir boy to the 
senior warden. So far forth as it accomplishes this task 
better than other denominations it deserves its success. 
The Christian Endeavor Society offers a plan, which has 
been in successful operation for years, of giving every 
young man and woman some appropriate and suitable 
task to accomplish for the Master and His church. 

A distinguished author, * in writing of the needs of one 

denomination of Christians, tho in the same article he is 

* President William DeWitt Hyde. 
11 161 



Training the Church of the Future 

critical of the Christian Endeavor Society, prescribes 
five things that the denomination "must do to be saved," 
as he expresses it. These five things are exactly the 
things which the society he criticizes stands for. They 
are as follows ; 

"1st. It must have a simple and searching covenant. " 
The covenant for active members of the Society of Chris- 
tian Endeavor is, "Trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ for 
strength, I promise Him that I will strive to do whatever 
he would like to have me do." All the duties of the So- 
ciety are embraced under this head and interpreted by 
this clause. 

"2d. Systematic instruction in what the church stands 
for." Every prayer-meeting may provide such instruc- 
tion and stimulus to carry it out, and in this instruction 
the pastor always has part, and a large part if he will. 

"3d. An open door." The door of the Society is wide 
enough to embrace in some form of membership all the 
young people of moral earnestness in the community. 

"4th. Broad and reasonable requirements of its mem- 
bers." Nothing is required of the members of the So- 
ciety that Christ would not have them do, and each is 
left to decide for himself what He requires of them. 

"5th. Something definite and practical to do, and per- 
sonal help in doing it." The exact object of the Chris- 
tian Endeavor Society could not better be expressed. 

That the practical results of this practical training 
have not been disappointing, is shown by the year-books 
of those churches that have most cordially adopted 
the society. In the Presbyterian and Congregational 

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Other Training Classes 



churches and the Disciples of Christ, membership during 
the past fifteen years has increased far faster than during 
any preceding fifteen years. More than twice as many 
have joined these churches on confession of faith each 
year, on the average, during the last decade and one- 
half, as in the preceding decade and a half, and the net 
gain has been twice as great. These figures have re- 
cently been obtained by careful investigation and are 
confirmed by Dr. Daniel Dorchester,* so well known as 
a careful and conservative statistician. 

The auxiliary movements along the line of applied 
Christianity which have found their way into the Chris- 
tian Endeavor household and are firmly established there 
are of much interest as showing the development of 
Christian life and activity among the young people. 
None of them has been forced upon the movement, but 
they have all grown naturally, spontaneously, almost in- 
evitably, from the Christian Endeavor seed. Nor have 
they proved to be suckers that have robbed the parent 
plant of its vitality, but each one has brought fresh in- 
spiration and vigor to the movement throughout the 
world. Chief among these auxiliaries, which have been 
happily called "the beautiful chapels of the Christian 
Endeavor cathedral," are "The Quiet Hour," the 
"Tenth Legion," the "Macedonian Phalanx," the 
"Home Circle," and the "Civic Club." 

Many of these efforts are described by their name 



* See article in Congregationalist, December, 1900. 
163 



Training the Church of the Future 

and on an earlier page have been alluded to. They can 
not be dwelt upon at length in this connection, tho some- 
thing more about them will be found in the Appendix. 

Am I not justified in appealing to my brother minis- 
ters, to those about to enter the ministry, to Sabbath 
School teachers, and all interested in training the church 
of the future, to use this method, God-appointed as all 
its brief history shows, to promote fellowship, democracy, 
activity, spirituality among the young? He who does 
not enter into these plans, who holds aloof or withdraws 
his young people from this brotherhood for sectarian or 
other reasons, is weakening the fellowship of all, and in 
a measure detracting from the fellowship, the activity, 
the inspiration of all. Are there not great and cogent 
reasons in these days when the common enemy of all 
righteousness unites his forces against us, for uniting so 
far as possible our forces against him and for our Lord ? 
Can any one afford to weaken the army of Christian 
young people because of any small reason, much less 
a prejudice, which experience might remove 1 ? Let me 
once more repeat that all the plans of the Christian En- 
deavor movement are flexible, that they may be adapted 
to any circumstances, that every true society is what its 
church and pastor desire it to be. 

In closing I would record a sentence from a writer to 
me unknown, which is written in a fly-leaf of the book 
that contains the original constitution of the original 
society. It is pregnant with wisdom, and contains the 

164 



Other Training Classes 



best argument for earnest, faithful, unremitting, system- 
atic effort for Christian nurture : 

" Young Christians may make mistakes in working for 
Christ, but they make a greater mistake in not working 
for Him. No failure in making the attempt is so bad 
as to fail to make it. Anything rather than spiritual 
death. Only let there be vigorous life, and guidance 
can readily be supplied." 



165 



APPENDICES 



Appendix I 



WOELD-WIDE ENDEAVOK 

A Brief History of the Beginning and Progress 
of the Christian Endeavor Society in Many 
Lands. 

This brief account of the beginning and spread of the 
Christian Endeavor Society has been compiled by Mrs. 
F. E. Clark. The statistics are necessarily incomplete 
as the numbers are enlarging every year in every land. 
Yet this chapter will give some idea of the providential 
spread of the Society. 

I. — The Beginning. 

Christian Endeavor began in Portland, Me., in 1881. 
The first society was formed by the Eev. Francis E. Clark, 
on the second day of February, in the Williston Church. 
There were about fifty members — boys and girls, as well 
as young men and women. Their first prayer-meeting 
was held early in February. The object of the society 
was to help the boys and girls to be Christians, and to 
train them to work for Christ. Those boys and girls 
are now grown up; but most of them are still engaged 
in Christian work, and we believe that they are doing 
better service because of their Christian Endeavor 
training. 

II. — Growth in the United States and Canada. 

In 1882 the first Christian Endeavor Convention was 
held in Williston Church, Portland. By this time there 
were about twenty societies in different parts of the 
country. All of these societies had been formed be- 
cause these churches had heard of the Christian Endeavor 

169 



Training the Church of the Future 



Society in Williston Church and thought it worth trying. 
The second society was in Newburyport, Mass. , the third 
in Ehode Island, the fourth in Portland, and the fifth in 
Vermont, and not long after these were formed, societies 
were heard of in Iowa, JSTew York, New Hampshire, and 
Canada. As was natural, our nearest neighbor and sister 
nation, Canada, was the first country outside of the 
United States to adopt Christian Endeavor. 

III. — Endeavor in Hawaii. (1884.) 

A pastor in Honolulu placed in his scrap-book an 
article by Mr. Clark entitled, "How One Church Takes 
Care of Its Young People." This article told of Chris- 
tian Endeavor, and it seemed to this pastor that it would 
be a good thing for his church ; so the first Christian 
Endeavor Society outside of America was started in 
Honolulu, and it was a scrap-book article that led to it. 
These Honolulu Endeavorers often have passing travel- 
ers of different nationalities visiting in their meetings, 
and by them seeds of Christian Endeavor have been car- 
ried to many other places. There are now seventeen 
societies in the Hawaiian Islands. 

IV.— China. (1885.) 

It was a missionary who carried Christian Endeavor 
to China. Eev. George H. Hubbard, of Fuchau, a 
young missionary, took Christian Endeavor with him 
when he sailed from America. He could not see why it 
should not be just as good for China, so he organized a 
society in a church in Fuchau. The first Chinese En- 
deavorer was Mr. Ling, a very bright young man, who 
said in an address at a convention in Shanghai that the 
object of their Christian Endeavor Society was "to drive 
the devil out of China." They have not wholly suc- 
ceeded in doing that yet, but the Christian Endeavor 
Societies all over China are doing something toward it. 
There is now a United Society for all China, with about 
two hundred societies enrolled. The first society in 
Fuchau was called by a Chinese word which means, 

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World-Wide Endeavor 



" The Drum and Bouse Up Society" — not a bad trans- 
lation of Christian Endeavor. The members of com- 
mittees had for a badge a small picture -frame wherein 
were written their instructions, and these frames were 
passed on to the next committee at the end of six 
months. It would be a good plan for some of us to try 
this method used by the first Chinese society. 

V. — India, Ceylon, Burma, Siam, the Laos Coun- 
try. (1885 . ) 

Ceylon. — About the time that Christian Endeavor was 
starting in China, another missionary, Miss Margaret 
Leitch, well known in America, was organizing the first 
society in Ceylon, among some Tamil girls. These girls 
believed that Christian Endeavor meant, among other 
things, giving to the Lord, and they set an example to 
American Endeavorers by consecrating some cocoanut- 
trees, giving all the cocoanuts that grew on these special 
trees to missionary work. Was this, perhaps, the be- 
ginning of the Tenth Legion? 

India. — One of the earliest societies in India was or- 
ganized in Madanapalle, a mission-station of the Ee- 
f ormed Church of the United States. Soon after societies 
were formed in many stations connected with the Arcot 
Mission, and at about the same time others in different 
parts of India. The second All -India Convention has 
recently been held in Allahabad, at which missionaries 
and delegates from all parts of India were present. Dr. 
Clark has twice visited India ; and on the occasion of 
his last visit, a United Society for India, Burma, and 
Ceylon, with headquarters at Calcutta, was formed. 
This United Society has largely promoted the work. 
Other great unions have been formed, like the South 
India Union, the Union for the Northwest Provinces, 
etc. Now there are over four hundred societies in the 
Madras Presidency of India alone; missionaries of al- 
most all denominations have entered heartily into the 
work, and Christian Endeavor flourishes in India more 
than in any other missionary land. 

171 



Training the Church of the Future 

Burma, Laos, and Siam. — There are now a few Chris- 
tian Endeavor Societies in Bnrina nnder the care of 
missionaries, and they are doing what they can to win 
Burma for Christ. There are twenty -nine societies in 
the Laos country, and two in Siam, and their influence 
is felt in many parts of their countries. 

VI.— Africa. (1886.) 

South Africa. — So far as we know, the first society in 
Africa was formed in 1886, in Amanzimtote, Natal, and 
there are now several other societies in these colonies. 
There is in Durban a native church formed on Christian 
Endeavor principles. The church members x>romise to 
read the Bible every day, or at least to hear it read, for 
some of them can not read. They also promise to en- 
deavor to give at least one-tenth to the Lord. Tho 
they have only an occasional visit from a missionary, 
they are working faithfully. They support twenty -five 
preaching services every Sunday, some of them going 
five or six miles to preach. This was in a Zulu church. 
But the work soon extended to the Dutch and English 
churches, and soon after was started in Cape Colony and 
the Boer republics. 

When Dr. Clark visited South Africa in 1896, a South 
African Union was formed at Cape Town, and the so- 
cieties are multiplying and flourishing finely. This 
Union has an efficient corps of officers, of which the be- 
loved Andrew Murray is the honorary president. A 
valuable monthly Christian Endeavor paper is published, 
and in spite of the long and disastrous war the societies 
have multiplied throughout South Africa. 

Liberia. — The first society in Liberia was organized by 
Bev. George P. Goll, in the Muhlenberg Mission, in 
1891, and soon after several others were formed. The 
missionaries tell us that these societies have taught their 
members to be more loyal, liberal, and self-sacrificing, 
and have bettered their lives in many ways. As the 
only means of conveyance in Liberia is walking or rowing 
in a canoe, the loyalty of members who have to travel 

172 



World-Wide Endeavor 



several miles to attend their meetings can be appreciated. 
There is now a Liberia Christian Endeavor Union, with 
seven societies enrolled. 

Egypt. — There are several Christian Endeavor Societies 
in Egypt, in the city of Cairo, and up the Nile, in the 
mission-churches of the United Presbyterian Church. 

Madagascar. — There are ninety-three societies in the 
island of Madagascar. Tho missionary work has been 
much hindered in these islands by French occupation, 
yet a better day is dawning for them, and the mis- 
sionaries testify that Christian Endeavor is a great help 
to them in their work. 

VII. —Great Britain. (1888. ) 

A young Englishman who had been a member of the 
first society in Williston Church wrote a letter to his old 
pastor in England telling him about the society. This 
pastor became interested in the subject, and as a result 
of that letter the first English society was started in 
Crewe, in 1888. At about the same time two or three 
other pastors, who had in some way heard of it, started 
societies in their churches. At first there were a good 
many objections to it in England, and some said that it 
was a " Yankee notion" which might be good for 
America, but was not what they needed in England. 
However, the societies increased, slowly at first and then 
more rapidly, till there are now (January, 1902) about 
eight thousand in all Great Britain — and it was a young 
man's letter to his pastor that began it. 

VIII. —Australasia. (1888. ) 

A young man who was a member of the second society 
of Christian Endeavor, in Newburyport, Mass., sailed 
on his father's ship from that port to Brisbane, Australia, 
and told to a pastor there the story of Christian En- 
deavor, and a society was started in that city. 

At about the same time societies were formed in 
Prahran, a suburb of Melbourne, Victoria, and in one 
or two other colonies of Australia ; for it is a fact that 

173 



Training the Church of the Future 



in many countries Christian Endeavor has seemed to 
blossom out in two or three different places all at once. 
Wherever a society was formed the young people found 
it helpful and told their friends about it, and so it came 
to pass that here and there other societies were formed, 
until there are now nearly three thousand societies in all 
the Australian colonies. 

In the strength of its Christian Endeavor work, Aus- 
tralia may be considered third of all the countries of the 
world, ranking after the United States and Canada, 
which are one in Christian Endeavor, and Great Britain. 

The great conventions held in Melbourne, Sydney, 
Adelaide, and Brisbane are as inspiring as any held in 
any part of the world. In New Zealand, too, the work 
flourishes, as well as in Australia, and some of the most 
ardent Endeavorers to be found in any part of the world 
are New Zealanders. The Endeavorers of this beautiful 
island form part of the Australasian Union. 

IX. —Turkey. (1889. ) 

In 1889 a Christian Endeavor Society was formed in 
a mission station in Turkey, not far from Cesarea, by an 
Armenian who had studied in America. The people 
were at first somewhat prejudiced against it, and called 
it "one of his American imported ideas." However, he 
began with his Sunday-school, and presently formed a 
class of those who were willing to try it. The next year 
he spoke of it at a conference in Cesare, and the mission- 
aries requested him to prepare a Christian Endeavor 
Manual in the Turkish language. He found this, how- 
ever, a work of peculiar difficulty. He says: "I could 
not safely translate ; even the name ' Endeavor ' had a 
military ring in it. ' Society ' was forbidden by an im- 
perial edict. Even ' Christian ' could not be used, while 
the term ' Young People ' was twice altered. Finally, 
the title read something like ' Young People's Brother- 
hood of Moral Activity. ' But even this was suppressed 
by the Turkish censors." 

Despite these difficulties, the work has grown and 
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World-Wide Endeavor 



spread, till there are now scores of societies in Turkey. 
A missionary writes: "One of the members said to me 
one day, ' Pastor, we shall beat America. ' We may 
never realize the dream of this young Galatian Endeav- 
orer as to numbers, but in the spirit and degree of con- 
secration it would be difficult to surpass them. " 

In Bulgaria there are several societies of Christian 
Endeavor, and their members are doing good work "for 
Christ and the Church. " 

X.— Japan. (About. 1889. ) 

The " Kyoreikwai " is the Japanese name for Christian 
Endeavor. The first society in Japan was formed by 
the missionary children of the different stations. Once 
a year, at the annual meeting of the mission, they hold 
their meeting all together* as a society, and during the 
rest of the year they meet as branch societies in their 
separate homes. Sometimes there is a branch society of 
eight or ten children, as in Kioto, where there are sev- 
eral missionary families, and sometimes only one or two 
can meet together, as in Okayama, where two little girls 
held their meeting every week for many years, with 
their mother for superintendent. These little branch 
societies tried to be faithful to the pledge, and finally 
their example was followed by others, and in many 
places Japanese societies were formed, till there are now 
seventy-five societies in the Land of the Rising Sun. 

XL— Spain. (1889.) 

Several years ago, in a mission boarding-school in San 
Sebastian, a little society was formed among the girls for 
Christian Endeavor, tho they had not then heard of 
the societies in America bearing that name. The girls 
chose the name "Hijas Leales" — Loyal Daughters. 
They had their meetings, in which all took part, and, as 
there was very little money in their pockets, they de- 
cided to give up some of the food they would otherwise 
have, and use the money for benevolence. When they 
heard of Christian Endeavor, and that the societies were 

175 



Training the Church of the Future 



branching ont into foreign lands, they decided to take 
that name for the sake of forming part of the great body 
of Endeavorers. Through the influence of the girls who 
have gone out from this school other societies have been 
started in different parts of the country, and there are 
now thirty-six Christian Endeavor Societies in Spain. 
There are no more earnest and enthusiastic societies in 
all the world than those of Spain. Even the Spanish- 
American war did not interrupt their zeal, tho the so- 
ciety was distinctly identified with America. None of 
the societies died during that year and several new ones 
were formed. 

XII.— France. (1889. ) 

It is through the door of the McAll Mission that Chris- 
tian Endeavor has entered France. Mr. Greig, who is 
now at the head of that mission, found that he often 
came across the words " Christian Endeavor " in religious 
papers, and he said to a friend, " Something like that is 
what we need in our work." Later he learned more of 
the society, and sent for literature on the subject. From 
the study of the papers that were sent to him grew a lit- 
tle book called "Societe d'Activite Chretienne Status." 
As information spread, through this little book and in 
other ways, societies sprang up among the Protestant 
churches, till there are now sixty-nine societies in France 
— ten of them in the city of Paris — and tho they pro- 
nounce the name a little differently, it means the same 
thing. 

XIII.— Persia. 

A young lady who was a Christian Endeavorer in 
America decided at a Christian Endeavor Convention to 
become a missionary, and not long after went to Hama- 
dan, Persia. She was so enthusiastic for Christian En- 
deavor that she persuaded Miss Montgomery, who had 
never seen such a society, to try it there. It was not 
long before a Junior Endeavor Society was started, 
which grew out of a prayer-meeting that four little boys 

176 



World-Wide Endeavor 



had asked for. / There are now four Christian Endeavor 
Societies in Persia, and it is pleasant to remember that 
it was a Christian Endeavor Convention that started that 
Christian Endeavor missionary to Persia. 

XIV. — Mexico and Central America. (1891.) 

It took just nine years for Christian Endeavor to travel 
from Maine to Mexico, and the first Christian Endeavor 
Society in that country was organized in Chihuahua, 
February 2, 1891. They publish now a Christian En- 
deavor paper, and there is also a United Society of 
Christian Endeavor for all Mexico, with three hundred 
societies enrolled. May the time come when the re- 
public of the South shall rival the republic of the 
North in Christian Endeavor. 

In Guatemala, too, Christian Endeavor has made a be- 
ginning, and, tho there are only two societies now so 
far as we know, we hope they may open the door for 
many more in different parts of Central America. 

XY. —South America. (1891. ) 

There are a number of Christian Endeavor Societies in 
the " Neglected Continent," and tho it goes slowly, 
as in all Catholic countries, yet wherever Protestant 
missionaries have gone they have carried Christian En- 
deavor with them. The first society was formed in 
Chile, in 1891, and it was greatly helped by some copies 
of The Christian Endeavor World that a New Jersey En- 
deavor Society sent to them regularly for distribution. 
These papers have been responsible for much of the 
Christian Endeavor work done in that country. There 
are now six societies in Chile, eleven in British Guiana, 
three in Colombia, and four in Brazil. 

XVI. —Switzerland. (1894. ) 

Three sisters started Christian Endeavor in Switzer- 
land, and the wonder of it is that none of the three had 
12 177 



Training the Church of the Future 



ever seen a Christian Endeavor Society. A young 
American girl had gone to Lansanne to study French, 
and she asked these sisters if there was any Christian 
Endeavor Society there. Out of that simple question 
has grown the Christian Endeavor work in that country. 
Moral: When you are traveling take your Christian 
Endeavor with you. There are not yet many societies 
in Switzerland, but the number is increasing, and those 
who are members are trying in French to keep the same 
pledge that we are keeping in English. 

XVII. —Germany. (1894. ) 

Through the writings of a German pastor in New 
York State news of Christian Endeavor was carried to 
Germany. A young theological student became inter- 
ested in it and tried to interest others, but they had not 
much sympathy with it. " Quite good, but American," 
was what they said. It was the story of the Cleveland 
Convention that interested a few pastors, and as they 
learned more about it, a few societies were formed. At 
the first German convention in Berlin one of the speakers 
was a young man who had been a member of that first 
society in Williston Church, who was then studying 
medicine in Berlin. There are now nearly a hundred 
societies in Germany, and they call it "Christliche Ent- 
schiedenheit. " They have a secretary and a monthly 
paper of their own. There are also a great many Ger- 
man Christian Endeavor Societies in America, and a 
German Christian Endeavor paper, called Der Mitarbeiter. 

XVIIL —Hungary. (1895. ) 

A young Hungarian who was studying theology in 
Berlin was present at the first German Christian En- 
deavor Convention, and became interested in Christian 
Endeavor. He carried the news to Hungary, and a 
pastor in a little country church organized a society of 
seven members. May this be but the beginning of a 
great company of Christian Endeavorers who shall do 
what they can to win Hungary for Christ ! 

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World-Wide Endeavor 



XIX. — Other Countries in Europe. (1894-99.) 

There are in many other countries in Europe small 
societies here and there. In Sweden there is a great in- 
terest in the work, and through the Sunday-School Union 
thirty-four societies have been formed. The news has 
lately come of the first society in Eussia. Austria has 
two societies, Belgium two, and Norway four. There 
are three societies in Italy and two in Denmark. May 
these few societies in these countries lead the way for 
many more ! 

XX.— Syria. 

The "Xedwat el Ijtehad Messeahy " is what they call 
it in Syria. If you can not pronounce it you may spell 
it, but it spells the same thing as Christian Endeavor, 
tho in a different costume and with different surround- 
ings. There are only a few societies in the Holy Land 
now, but we hope there will soon be many more of them, 
and that a Christian Endeavor crusade may some time 
take even Jerusalem for Christ. 

XXI. — The Island World. 

The first Christian Endeavor Society in the South Seas 
was established at the Malua Training Institute, Upola, 
Samoa, in 1890. At their first C. E. meeting, ten mem- 
bers were enrolled. Since the establishment of that first 
society in Samoa two hundred and fifty-eight members 
have been enrolled in that one society alone. Of these, 
no less than thirteen have gone as missionaries to New 
Guinea. We can hardly expect to hear of a South Sea 
Island Convention, since these islands are scattered over 
an area of a thousand miles of ocean, but there are now 
thirteen societies in Samoa alone. 

There are also other island societies scattered in dif- 
ferent seas and oceans the world around. 

The missionaries in the Marshall and Gilbert Islands 
send most glowing reports of the good the societies are 

179 



Training the Church of the Future 



doing in these islands. Probably by this time there are 
many more societies, as it takes many months to hear 
reports from them. But according to last advices, there 
were thirteen societies in the Marshall Islands, two in 
the Gilbert Islands, six in the Ellice Islands, and three 
in the Tokelan Islands. 

The little island of Jamaica sets a good example to 
larger islands, for they have there one hundred flourish- 
ing Christian Endeavor Societies, and are beginning to 
talk of a Christian Endeavor Union for all the West 
Indies. 

In Trinidad there are seven societies, and in Granada 
one. 

From the Philippines news comes to us of a society 
started in the United States Army, the first in those 
islands. May it be but the forerunner of many more ! 

And the latest children of Christian Endeavor, so far 
as we know, are the Cuban societies in Havana, both 
Young People's and Junior. May those first Endeavor- 
ers in that fair island have a large share in the work of 
winning Cuba for Christ ! 

XXII. — Floating Endeavor. 

If any one had predicted when the first society was 
formed that within less than a dozen years there would 
be faithful societies sailing the seas, and that they would 
be found on almost every ocean, he would have been 
considered a wild prophet, but that is true to-day, and 
many touching stories have come to us of sailors who 
are just as faithful to their pledge as any Endeavorers 
in the home churches. The first Floating Society was 
formed on the United States Eevenue Marine Steamer 
Dexter. Twelve of the sailors signed the pledge, organ- 
ized a society, and held their first consecration meeting. 
There are now one hundred and twenty -two societies 
on board ships of war, and merchant ships, and at life- 
saving stations. Miss Antoinette P. Jones, by her faith- 
ful work, has done much to promote these societies. 

180 



Model Constitution 



XXIII. — Endeavor in Unexpected Places. 

Christian Endeavor has found its way into many un- 
expected places. In 1890 a society was formed in a 
Wisconsin State Prison, and the chaplain found it a real 
help in his work among the prisoners. Because of the 
good work done in that society, other societies have been 
organized in other prisons, notably in Kentucky, where 
a splendid work has been done. Other nourishing prison 
societies are found in Indiana, Iowa, New Mexico, Xew 
York, and several other States. Societies have also been 
formed in schools, and in hospitals among the nurses, 
and among policemen, and among traveling men, in the 
army, and in many other places where no one would 
have thought of finding them ; but their object is always 
the same, to help their members to be better Christians. 

XXIV.— To-Day. 

To-day (January, 1902) there are fifty-two thousand 
Christian Endeavor Societies, with nearly three and 
three-quarter millions of members, in all sorts of places 
and in almost every country in the world, all pledged to 
do whatever Jesus would like to have them do. 



Appendix II 

MODEL CONSTITUTION* 
Article I. — Name. 

This society shall be called the 

Young People's Society oe Christian Endeavor. 

* This Constitution, which, in its important features, is substan- 
tially the same as that adopted by the first society in Portland, 
February 2, 1881, has been prepared with great care, and met with 
the very hearty indorsement of the Fourth National Convention, to 
which it was presented. It has been revised and approved by the 
Trustees of the United Society, at a meeting held October, 1887. It is 
not necessarily binding upon any local society, but is to be regarded in 
the light of a recommendation, especially for the guidance of new 

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Training the Church of the Future 

Article II. — Object. 

Its object shall be to promote an earnest Christian life 
among its members, to increase their mutual acquain- 
tance, and to make them more useful in the service of 
God. 

Article III. — Member ship. 

1. The members shall consist of three classes: Active, 
Associate, and Affiliated or Honorary. 

2. Active Members. The active members of this soci- 
ety shall consist of all young persons who believe them- 
selves to be Christians, and who sincerely desire to ac- 
complish the objects above specified. Voting power 
shall be vested only in the active members. 

3. Associate Members. All young persons of worthy 
character, who are not at present willing to be considered 
decided Christians, may become associate members of 
this society. They shall have the special prayers and 
sympathy of the active members, but shall be excused 
from taking part in the prayer-meeting. It is expected 
that all associate members will habitually attend the 
praj^er-meetings, and that they will in time become ac- 
tive members, and the society will work to this end. 

4. Affiliated or Honorary Members.* All persons who, 

organizations and those unacquainted with the work of the Society 
of Christian Endeavor. It is hoped, however, for the sake of uni- 
formity, that the Constitution, which deals only with main princi- 
ples, may be generally adopted, and that such changes as may be 
needed to adapt the society to local needs will be made in the By- 
Laws. Even if the language of the Constitution of some local soci- 
eties should vary from this Model Constitution, it should be borne in 
mind that only those societies that adhere to the prayer-meeting idea 
as embodied in Article VII., and the main features of committee 
work, can properly claim the name of Christian Endeavor societies. 
The specimen By-Laws which are here appended embrace sugges- 
tions for the government of the society which have been found suc- 
cessful in many places. Each one is approved by experience. 

* This class of membership is provided for Christians of mature 
years, especially for those who have been active members, and who 
desire to remain throughout their lives connected with the society. 
Young persons who can be either active or associate members should 
in no case be affiliated members. 

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Model Constitution 



tho no longer yonng, are still interested in the society, 
and wish to have some connection with it, tho they can 
not regularly attend the meetings, may become honorary 
members. Their names shall be kept upon the list under 
the appropriate heading, but shall not be called at the 
roll-call meeting. It is understood that the society may 
look to the honorary members for financial and moral 
support in all worthy efforts. (For special class of 
honorary members, see Article XI. ) 

5. These different persons shall become members, upon 
being elected by the society, after carefully examining 
the Constitution and By-Laws and upon signing their 
names to them, thereby pledging themselves to live up 
to their requirements. 

Article IY. — Officers. 

1. The officers of this society shall be a President, 
Vice-President, Eecording Secretary, Corresponding Sec- 
retary, and Treasurer, who shall be chosen from among 
the active members of the society. 

2. There shall also be a Lookout Committee, a Prayer- 
Meeting Committee, a Social Committee, and such other 
committees as the local needs of each society may require, 
each consisting of five active members. There shall also 
be an Executive Committee, as provided in Article VI. 

Article V. — Duties of Officers. 

1. President. The President of the society shall per- 
form the duties usually pertaining to that office. He 
shall have especial watch over the interests of the soci- 
ety, and it shall be his care to see that the different com- 
mittees perform the duties devolving upon them. He 
shall be chairman of the Executive Committee. 

2. Vice-President. The Vice-President shall assist the 
President, and perform his duties in his absence. * 

3. Corresponding Secretary. It shall be the duty of the 
Corresponding Secretary to keep the local society in 

* It is suggested that the Vice-President shall also be Secretary of 
the Executive Committee. 

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Training the Church of the Future 



communication with the State and local Christian En- 
deavor unions and with the United Society, and to pre- 
sent to his own society such matters of interest as may 
come from the United Society, from other local societies, 
and from other authorized sources of Christian Endeavor 
information. This office shall be held permanently by 
the same person, so long as he is able to perform its du- 
ties satisfactorily, and his name should be forwarded to 
the United Society immediately after election. 

4. Becording Secretary. It shall be the duty of the Be- 
cording Secretary to keep a record of the members, to 
correct it from time to time, as may be necessary, and to 
obtain the signature of each newly elected member to 
the Constitution ; also to correspond with absent mem- 
bers, and to inform them of their standing in the society ; 
also to keep correct minutes of all business meetings of 
the society ; also to notify all persons elected to office or 
to committees. 

5. Treasurer. It shall be the duty of the Treasurer to 
keep safely all moneys belonging to the society, and to 
pay out only such sums as shall be voted by the society. 

Article VI. — Duties of Committees. 

1. Lookout Committee* It shall be the duty of this 
committee to bring new members into the society, to in- 
troduce them to the work and to the other members, and 
affectionately to look after and reclaim any that seem in- 
different to their duties, as outlined in the pledge. This 
committee shall also, by personal investigation, satisfy 
itself of the fitness of young persons to become members 
of this society, and shall propose their names at least one 
week before their election to membership, having first 
presented such names to the pastor for approval. 

2. Prayer- Meeting Committee. It shall be the duty of 
this committee to have in charge the prayer -meeting, and 
to see that a topic is assigned and a leader appointed for 
every meeting, and to do what it can to secure faithful- 
ness to the prayer-meeting pledge. 

3. Social Committee. It shall be the duty of this com- 

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Model Constitution 



mittee to promote the social interests of the society by 
welcoming strangers to the meetings, and by providing 
for the mutual acquaintance of the members by occasional 
sociables, for which any appropriate entertainment, of 
which the church approves, may be provided. 

4. Executive Committee.* This committee shall consist 
of the pastor of the church, the officers of the society, 
and the chairmen of the various committees. All mat- 
ters of business requiring debate shall be brought first 
before this committee, and by it reported to the society 
either favorably or adversely. All discussions of pro- 
posed measures shall take place before this committee, and 
not before the society. Eecommendations concerning 
the finances of the society shall also originate with this 
committee. 

5. Each committee, except the Executive, shall make 
a report in writing to the society, at the monthly busi- 
ness meetings, concerning the work of the past month. 

Article VII. — The Prayer-Meeting. 

All the active members shall be present at every meeting, 
unless detained by some absolute necessity, and each active 
member shall take some part, however slight, in every meet- 
ing. To the above all the active members shall pledge them- 
selves, understanding by " absolute necessity" some reason for 
absence ivhich can conscientiously be given to their Master, 
Jesus Christ. 

Article VIII. — The Pledge. \ 

All persons on becoming active members of the Socie- 
ty shall sign the following pledge: 

Trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ for strength, I promise 
Him that I will strive to do whatever He would like to have 
me do ; that I will make it the rule of my life to pray and to 

*The object of this committee is to prevent waste of time in the 
regular meetings of the society by useless debate and unnecessary 
parliamentary practise, which are always harmful to the spirit of a 
prayer-meeting. 

f If this exact form of words is now adopted, it is earnestly hoped 
that it will not be essentially weakened, but that a pledge em- 

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Training the Church of the Future 



read the Bible every day, and to support my own church in 
every way, especially by attending her regular Sunday and 
mid-week services, unless prevented by some reason which 
I can conscientiously give to my Savior; and that, just 
so far as I know how, throughout my whole life, I will 
endeavor to lead a Christian life 

As an active member, I promise to be true to all my 
duties, to be present at, and to take some part, aside from 
singing, in every Christian Endeavor prayer-meeting, unless 
hindered by some reason which I can conscientiously give 
to my Lord and Master. If obliged to be absent from 
the monthly consecration meeting of the society, I will, 
if possible, send at least a verse of Scripture to be read in 
response to my name at the roll call. 

Signed ........ 

The associate member's pledge is as follows: 



ASSOCIATE MEMBER'S PLEDGE. 

As an associate member, I promise to attend the prayer 
meetings of the society habitually, and declare my willing- 
ness to do what I may be called upon to do as an associate 
member to advance the interests of the society 

Signed 

Article IX. — The Consecration Meeting. 

1. Once each month a consecration or covenant meet- 
ing shall be held, at which each active member shall re- 
new his vows of consecration. If any one chooses, he 
can express his feelings by an appropriate verse of Scrip- 
ture or other quotation. 

2. At each consecration meeting the roll shall be called 
(or some equally thorough method of making the record 
may be adopted), and the responses of the active mem- 
bers shall be considered as renewed expressions of alle- 
giance to Christ. It is expected that if any one is obliged to 
be absent from this meeting, he will send a message, or at 

bracing the ideas of private devotion, loyalty to the church, and 
outspoken confession of Christ in the weekly meeting will be 
adopted. When the Prayer-Meeting Pledge is carefully studied it 
will be seen that only the common duties of the Christian life are 
demanded, private prayer and Bible study, outspoken confession of 
Christ before men, and loyalty to Christ's church. All this is em- 
bodied in every church covenant. It is here made specific and 
definite for immature and inexperienced Christians. 

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Model Constitution 



least a verse of Scripture, to be read in response to his name 
at the roll-call. 

3. If any active member of this society is absent from 
this monthly meeting, and fails to send a message, the 
Lookout Committee is expected to take the name of such 
a one, and in a kind and brotherly spirit ascertain the 
reason for the absence. If any active member of the society 
is absent and unexcused from three consecutive monthly meet- 
ings, such a one ceases to be a member of the society, and his 
name, on vote of the Lookout Committee and the pastor, shall 
be stricken from the list of members. 

4. Any associate member who, without good reason, 
is regularly absent from the prayer-meetings, and shows 
no interest whatever in the work of the society, may, 
upon vote of the Lookout Committee and pastor, be 
dropped from the roll of members. 

Article X. — Business Meetings and Elections. 

1. Business meetings may be held in connection with 
the prayer-meeting, or at any other time in accordance 
with the call of the President. 

2. An election of the officers and committees shall be 
held once in six months.* Names may be proposed by 
a Nominating Committee appointed by the President, of 
which the pastor shall be a member ex officio. 

Article XL — Relation to the Church. 

This society, being a part of the church, owes allegi- 
ance only and altogether to the church with which it is 
connected. The pastors, deacons, elders or stewards, 
and Sunday-school superintendent, if not active mem- 
bers, shall be, ex officiis, honorary members. Any dim- 
cult question shall be laid before them for advice, and 
their decision shall be final. It shall be understood that 
the nomination of officers or other action taken by the 
society shall be subject to revision or veto by the church ; 
that in every way the society shall put itself under the 

* Once a year, if preferred. 
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Training the Church of the Future 



control of the official board of the church, and shall 
make a report to the church monthly, quarterly, or an- 
nually, as the church may direct. 

Article XII. — Belation of the Junior Society. 

The Young People's Society of Christian Endeavor and 
the Junior Society being united by ties of closest sympa- 
thy and common effort, monthly (or at least annual) re- 
ports should be read to the Young People's Society by 
the Junior Superintendent. When the boys and girls 
reach the age of fourteen, they shall be transferred to the 
older society. Special pains shall be taken to see that 
a share of the duties and responsibilities of the prayer- 
meetings and of the general work of the society shall be 
borne by the younger members. 

Article XIII. — Fellowship. 

This society, while owing allegiance only to its own 
church, is united by ties of spiritual fellowship with other 
Christian Endeavor societies the world around. This 
fellowship is based upon a common love of Christ, is 
cemented by a common pledge and common methods of 
work, and is guaranteed by a common name, "Christian 
Endeavor,' 7 used either alone or in connection with some 
denominational name. 

This fellowship is that of an interdenominational, not 
an undenominational, organization. It is promoted by 
local-union meetings, State and national conventions, 
and still further by the work of the Information Com- 
mittee, which it is hoped will be adopted by each society. 
(See By-Laws, Article X.) 

Article XIV. — Withdrawals. 

Any member who may wish to withdraw from the so- 
ciety shall state the reasons to the Lookout Committee 
and pastor, and if these reasons seem sufficient he may 
be allowed to withdraw. 

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Model Constitution 



Article XY. — Miscellaneous. 

Any other committees may be added and duties as- 
sumed by this society which in the future may seem best. 

Article XYI. — Transfer of Members. 

Since it would in the end defeat the very object of our 
organization if the older active members, who have been 
trained in the society for usefulness in the church, should 
remain content with fulfilling their pledge to the society 
only, therefore it is expected that the older members, 
when it shall become impossible for them to attend two 
weekly prayer-meetings, shall be transferred to the hon- 
orary membership of the society, if previously faithful 
to their vows as active members. This transfer, how- 
ever, shall be made with the understanding that the obli- 
gation to faithful service shall still be binding upon them 
in the regular church prayer-meeting. It shall be left to 
the Lookout Committee, in conjunction with the pastor, 
to see that this transfer of membership is made as occa- 
sion requires. 

Article XVII. — Amendment. 

This Constitution maybe amended at any regular busi- 
ness meeting, by a two-thirds vote of the entire active 
member ship of the society, provided that a written state- 
ment of the proposed amendment shall have been read to 
the society and deposited with the Secretary at the regu- 
lar business meeting next preceding. 

SPECIMEX BY-LAWS.* 

Article I. 

This society shall hold a prayer -meeting on 

evening of each week. The regular prayer- 
meeting of the month shall be a consecration meeting, at 
which the roll shall be called. 

* If it is thought that these rules and regulations are unnecessarily 
long, it should be borne distinctly in mind that these specimen By- 
Laws are simply given as suggestions 

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Training the Church of the Future 



Article II. — Method of Conducting the Consecration 
Meeting. 

At this meeting the roll may be called by the leader 
during the meeting or at its close. After the opening 
exercises, the names of five or more may be called, and 
then a hymn snng or a prayer offered. The committees 
may be called by themselves, or other variations of the 
roll-call introduced. Thus varied, with singing and 
prayer interspersed, the entire roll shall be called. 

Article III. — Business Meetings. 

The society shall hold its regular business * meeting 

in connection with the regular prayer-meeting 

in the month. Special business meetings may be held 
at the call of the President. 

Article IV. — Elections. 

The election of officers and committees shall be held at 
the first business meeting in 

A Nominating Committee shall be appointed by the 
President at least two weeks previous to the time for 
electing new officers. Of this committee the pastor shall 
be a member ex officio. It is understood that these offi- 
cers are chosen subject to the approval of the church. 
If there is no objection on the part of the church, the 
election stands. The following causes of the By-Laws 
may be read at the society before each semi-annual elec- 
tion of officers : 

While membership on the board of officers or commit- 
tees of this society should be distributed as evenly as 
the best good of the society will warrant, among the dif- 
ferent members, the offices shall not be considered places 
of honor to be striven for, but simply opportunities for 

* This business meeting will usually be simply for the hearing of 
reports from the committees, or for such matters as will not detract 
from the spiritual tone of the meeting. All matters requiring dis- 
cussion, it will be remembered, are to be brought before the Execu- 
tive Committee, and not before the society. 

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Model Constitution 



increased usefulness, and any ill feeling or jealousy 
springing from this cause shall be deemed unworthy a 
member of the Society of Christian Endeavor. When, 
however, a member has been fairly elected, it is expected 
that he will consider his office a sacred trust, to be con- 
scientiously accepted, and never to be declined except 
for most urgent and valid reasons. 

Article Y. — New Members* 

Applications for membership may be made on printed 
forms, which shall be supplied by the Lookout Commit- 
tee and returned to them for consideration. 

Names may be proposed for membership one week be- 
fore the business meeting, and shall be voted on by the 
society at that meeting. The Lookout Committee may, 
in order to satisfy itself of the Christian character of the 
candidate, present to all candidates for active or associ- 
ate membership the appropriate membership pledge to 
be signed. (The form of these pledges may be found 
elsewhere. ) 

Article VI. 

Persons who have forfeited their membership may be 
readmitted on recommendation of the Lookout Commit- 
tee and pastor and by vote of the members present at 
any regular business meeting. 

Article VII. 

New members shall sign the Constitution, which shall 
contain the pledge, within four weeks from their elec- 
tion, to confirm the vote of the society. 

* Great care should be taken that new members understand their 
duties and the obligations of the pledge, and it should be explained 
to them how reasonable, Scriptural, and possible of fulfilment it is. 
Emphasis should be laid upon the fact that nothing more is de- 
manded in the Christian Endeavor pledge than in the average church 
covenant, only the duties are made specific; also that an excuse 
which one can give to the Master is always accepted, and that no 
other should be urged for the non -performance of any duty. 

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Training the Church of the Future 



Article VIII. 

Any one who can not accept the office to which he may 
be elected shall notify the President before the next busi- 
ness meeting, at which the vacancy shall be filled. In 
the mean time, the former officer holds the position. 

Article IX. 

Letters of introduction to other Christian Endeavor 
societies shall be given to members in good standing who 
apply to be released from their obligations to the society, 
this release to take effect when they shall become mem- 
bers of another society ; until then, their names shall be 
kept on the Absent List. Members removing to other 
places, or desiring to join other Christian Endeavor soci- 
eties in the same city or town, are requested to obtain 
letters of introduction within six months from the time 
of their leaving, unless they shall give satisfactory rea- 
sons to the society for their further delay. 

Article X. 

Other committees may be added, according to the 
needs of local societies, whose duties may be defined as 
follows : 

Information Committee. It shall be the duty of this 
committee to gather information concerning Endeavorers 
or Endeavor work in all parts of the world, and to re- 
port the same. For this purpose, five minutes shall be 
set aside at the beginning of each meeting. 

Sunday -School Committee. It shall be the duty of this 
committee to endeavor to bring into the Sunday-school 
those who do not attend elsewhere, and to cooperate 
with the Superintendent and officers of the school in any 
ways which they may suggest for the benefit of the Sun- 
day-school. 

Calling Committee. It shall be the duty of this commit- 
tee to have a special care for those among the young peo- 
ple who do not feel at home in the church, to call on 
them, and to remind others where calls should be made. 

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Model Constitution 



Music Committee. It shall be the duty of this commit- 
tee to provide for the singing at the young people's meet- 
ing, and also to turn the musical ability of the society to 
account, when necessary, at public religious meetings. 

Missionary Committee. It shall be the duty of this 
committee to provide for regular missionary meetings, 
to interest the members of the society in all ways in 
missionary topics, and to aid, in any manner which 
may seem practicable, the cause of home and foreign 
missions. 

Flower Committee. It shall be the duty of this commit- 
tee to provide flowers for the pulpit, and to distribute 
them to the sick at the close of the Sabbath services. 

Temperance Committee. It shall be the duty of this 
committee to do what may be deemed best to promote 
temperance principles and sentiment among the mem- 
bers of the society. 

Relief Committee. It shall be the duty of this commit- 
tee to do what it can to cheer and aid, by material com- 
forts if possible and necessary, the sick and destitute 
among the young people of the church and Sunday- 
school. 

Good- Literature Committee. It shall be the duty of this 
committee to do its utmost to promote the reading of 
good books and papers. To this end it shall do what it 
can to circulate the religious newspaper representing the 
society among its members, also to obtain subscribers for 
the denominational papers or magazines among the fam- 
ilies of the congregation as the pastor and church may 
direct. It may, if deemed best, distribute tracts and 
religious leaflets, and in any other suitable way which 
may be desired introduce good reading matter wherever 
practicable. 

Other committees not here found may be added as oc- 
casion may demand and the church may desire. 

Article XI. 

Members who can not meet with this society for a time 
are requested to obtain leave of absence, which shall be 
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Training the Church of the Future 



granted by the Lookout Commitee and pastor and with- 
drawn at any time by the same, and their names shall be 
placed on the Absent List. 

Article XII. 

members shall constitute a quorum. 

Article XIII. 

These By-Laws may be amended by a two-thirds vote 
of the members present at any regular meeting, provided 
that notice of such amendment is given in writing and 
is recorded by the Secretary at least one week before the 
amendment is acted upon. 



Appendix III 

JTJXIOE SOCIETIES OF CHBISTIAX EKDEAVOB 

The demand for Junior societies has been as spontane- 
ous as it is pressing. It is a natural and inevitable out- 
growth of the Christian Endeavor movement. Many 
pastors and churches have felt that, while the Young 
People's Society of Christian Endeavor was admirably 
answering the needs of the young men and women, and 
of the older boys and girls, yet the younger boys and 
girls, who could not attend the regular weekly prayer- 
meeting held in the evening, were, in some degree, left 
out of the plan. In thousands of churches this lack has 
been supplied by the introduction of Junior Societies of 
Christian Endeavor, into which the children are taken, 
and from which they are graduated, when old enough, 
into the Young People's Society. The suggestions here 
given have come to me very largely from others who 
have successfully tried these plans. 

Who Should Belong^ 

Various answers are given to this question. The prac- 
tise of wise superintendents differs in regard to the age 

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Junior Societies 



limit, tho the usual age is, perhaps, from seven to 
fourteen. A child might attend and be a preparatory 
member as soon as he is old enough to understand that 
he must be quiet and reverent during the meeting. Still, 
it is difficult to draw any age limit on the younger side, 
and perhaps it is not necessary. The age line is drawn 
largely by the necessities of the case. 

The call for Junior societies comes from the fact that 
there are many boys and girls who ought to be brought 
under direct religious influence whose parents will not, 
and should not, allow them to go out in the evening, 
when meetings of the Young People's Society are neces- 
sarily held. For them meetings should be appointed in 
the afternoon (and a week day is better than Sunday), 
or at least in the early evening. It is also true that 
these younger children, while there are many things in 
their society which they can do for themselves, are not 
quite old enough to carry on their organization fully. 
They particularly need the guidance of some older Chris- 
tian friends. This brings us to the question : 

Who should Be at the Head of the Junior 
Society 1 ? 

Some one or two or more of the older and more judi- 
cious members of the Young People's Society, I should 
say ; but be sure they have a great love for children in 
their hearts. They will need tact and " consecrated com- 
mon sense. 7 ' 

What Pledge should the Children Take? 

A pledge as much like the pledge of the older society 
as their years will allow. I do not think it is too much 
to ask of even the boys and girls of seven or eight to 
pray and read the Bible every day, to try and live Chris- 
tian lives, and to show it by being present at the weekly 
meeting and taking some part therein. There are some 
expressions of the Christian life which are just as appro- 
priate to the boy of eight as to the youth of eighteen or 

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Training the Church of the Future 

the man of forty-eight, and it is just as important that 
he should give utterance to these expressions. 

We do not expect a little oration or a vivid experience 
each week from them. The Christian Endeavor idea is 
utterly antagonistic to anything of that sort ; but there 
are simple words of confession which are just as appro- 
priate for the little child to use as the more elaborate 
forms are for his father. 

There is no danger of beginning too young. Our older 
societies will be stronger, and so will our churches, if 
these little ones begin aright. In churches where there 
are flourishing Junior as well as Young People's Societies 
of Christian Endeavor, I predict very few " dumb Chris- 
tians " in twenty years from now. One of the dangers 
that will meet the superintendent is that of trying to 
do all the work and most of the talking. A Junior 
society is not a primary Sunday-school class. It is a 
training-school where the children learn by speaking 
and praying and filling the offices and working on the 
committees. 

And now for the conclusion of the whole matter : If, 
in your Sunday-school, there are a number of boys and 
girls who are too young for the regular society, but not 
too young to come to Jesus and be trained for Him, con- 
sider carefully whether the Junior society is not the thing 
for them. Count the cost ; remember that it will require 
work for some one to keep it in a flourishing condition. 
(The difficulty is not in starting, but in sustaining such 
a society. ) Then if you are convinced that such an aux- 
iliary is what you need, go forward and start a Junior 
society "for Christ and the Church." 

MODEL CONSTITUTION AND BY-LAWS. 

Article I.— Name. 

This society shall be called the Junior Society of 
Christian Endeavor of 

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Junior Societies 



Article II.— Object 

Its object shall be to promote an earnest Christian life 
among the boys and girls who shall become members, 
and prepare them for the active service of Christ. 



Article III. — Membership. 

1. The members shall consist of two classes, active 
and preparatory.* 

2. Active members. Any boy and girl between the 

ages of and , inclusive, who shall 

be approved by the superintendent and assistant, may 
become an active member of the society by taking the 
following pledge : 

JUNIOR MEMBERSHIP PLEDGE. 

Trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ for strength, I promise 
Him that I will strive to do whatever He would like to 
have me do, that I will pray and read the Bible every day, 
and that, just so far as I know how, 1 will try to lead a 
Christian life. I will be present at every meeting of the 
society when I can, and will take some part in every meet- 
ing. 

Name 

I am willing that should sign this pledge, 

and will do all I can to help keep it. 

Parent's name 

Residence 

3. Preparatory members shall be those who wish to be- 
long to the society, but whose parents are not quite ready 
to let them sign the pledge. They will be expected to 
attend the meetings regularly, and it is hoped that this 
will be considered simply as a preparation for active 
membership. 

*Note. — Some societies also provide for Honorary members, con- 
sisting of the pastor, President of the Young People's Society, and 
mothers that are especially interested in the society and desire to 
help it by their prayers and occasional attendance. 

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Training the Church of the Future 



The preparatory members shall take the following 
pledge : 

As a preparatory member I promise to be present at 
every meeting when I can, and to be quiet and reverent 
during the meeting. 

Signed 

Article IY. — Officers. 

The officers of the society shall be one or more super- 
intendents chosen by the Young People's Society, with 
the approval of the church and pastor ; also a President, 
Yice-President, Secretary, and Treasurer, who shall be 
chosen by the boys and girls. There shall also be a 
Lookout Committee, a Prayer-Meeting Committee, a So- 
cial Committee, a Missionary Committee, and such other 
committees as the superintendents may deem best. 
These committees shall be nominated by the superinten- 
dents and elected by the society. 

Article Y. — Duties of Officers. 

1. The Superintendent shall have full control of the so- 
ciety. 

2. The Assistant Superintendent shall aid the Superin- 
tendent in her work. The Assistant shall take care of 
all funds belonging to the society, the money being 
turned over to her by the Treasurer at the close of each 
meeting. 

3. The President shall conduct the business meetings, 
under the direction of the Superintendent. 

4. The Vice-President shall act in the absence of the 
President. 

5. The Secretary shall keep a correct list of the mem- 
bers, take the minutes of the business meetings, and call 
the names at the roll-call meetings. 

6. The Treasurer shall take up the collections, enter 
the amount in the account-book, and turn over the 
money to the Assistant Superintendent, and also enter 
all expenditures as directed by the Superintendent. 

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Junior Societies 



Article YI. — Duties of Committees. 

1. The Lookout Committee shall secure the names of any 
who may wish to join the society, and report the same to 
the superintendents for action. They shall also obtain 
excuses from members absent from the roll-call, and 
affectionately look after and reclaim any who seem indif- 
ferent to their pledge. 

2. The Fray er- Meeting Committee shall, in connection 
with the Superintendent, select topics, assign leaders, 
and do what it can to secure faithfulness to the prayer - 
meeting pledge. 

3. The Social Committee shall welcome the children to 
the meetings, and introduce them to the other members 
of the society. They may also arrange for occasional 
sociables. 

Article VII. — Relationship. 

The Junior society is a part of the church, and its rela- 
tion to the Young People's Society of Christian Endeavor 
should be close and intimate. It is expected that when 
the members of the Junior society have reached their age 
limit, they will enter the Christian Endeavor Society as 
active members. 

Article VIII. — Meetings. 

1. A prayer-meeting shall be held once every week. 
A consecration meeting shall be held once a month, at 
which the pledge shall be read and the roll called, and 
the responses of the members shall be considered a re- 
newal of the pledge of the society. If any member is 
absent from three consecutive consecration meetings, 
without excuse, his name shall be dropped from the list 
of members. 

2. Part of the hour of the weekly meeting may, if 
deemed best, be used by the pastor or Superintendent of 
the society for instruction, or for other exercises which 
they may approve. 

199 



Training the Church of the Future 



BY-LAWS.* 

1. The society shall hold a prayer-meeting on 

of each week. The last regular 

meeting of each month shall be a consecration meeting. 
The business meeting may be held in connection with the 
first regular meeting of each month. 

2. The officers and committees shall be chosen in 
and and continue six months, be- 
ginning on the first of the month following their election. 

3. Special meetings of the society may be held at any 
time, at the call of the Superintendent. 

4. A collection shall be taken at the consecration meet- 
ing, and at the other meetings if desired, the nioney thus 
obtained to be held available- for benevolent objects and 
to meet the expenses of the society. 

5. All committees should meet at least once a month 
for consultation with the Superintendent in regard to 
their work. 

6. All expenditures shall be made under the direction 
of the Superintendent. 

7. Other committees may be added, whose duties shall 
be defined as follows : 

The Music Committee shall distribute and collect the 
singing -books, and cooperate with the leader of the 
meeting in trying in every way to make the singing a 
success. 

The Missionary Committee shall arrange for an occasional 
missionary meeting, and seek to interest the members in 
home and foreign work. 

The Temperance Committee shall arrange for an occa- 
sional temperance meeting, and circulate a temperance 
pledge among the members. 

The Sunday -School Committee shall secure the names of 
children who do not attend Sunday -school, and invite 
them to become members of the Sunday-school. 

* It is hoped that so far as possible the societies will adhere to the 
Model Constitution, making all necessary local changes in the By- 
laws. 

200 



Claim upon the Churches 



The Flower Committee shall provide flowers for the 
Sunday-school room, and distribute fruit and flowers to 
the sick and needy. 

The Scrap- Book Committee shall collect pictures and 
clippings, and make scrap-books for sick and disabled 
members and for distribution in the hospitals. 

The Belief Committee shall collect clothing for the des- 
titute children found in the Sunday-school and society, 
and bring it to the Superintendent for distribution. 

The Birthday Committee shall report all birthdays, as 
they occur among the members, so that special prayer 
may be offered for each member on his or her birthday. 

8. This Constitution and these By-Laws may be altered 
or amended any time the superintendents and pastor find 
it necessary. 



Appendix IV 



CHEISTIAN ENDEAVOE AS A WOELD-WIDE 

MOVEMENT, AND ITS CLAIM UPON THE 

CHUECHES 

By FRANCIS E. CLARK, D.D. 

Occasionally I hear of a pastor who gives up his Chris- 
tian Endeavor society as an old coat would be laid aside, 
or of a church that disbands its society as jauntily as a 
housewife discharges her cook. 

Ten times oftener I hear of new societies being formed 
and of pastors and churches guarding them as choice 
treasures. Still, the former cases occur often enough to 
call for a few words of comment, and to lead me to ask 
and to attempt to answer the question, What claim has 
Christian Endeavor as a movement upon the churches % 

First. 

It has a claim because it stands for the largest and 
strongest Christian fellowship and federation of Christian 
young people known to-day. A society that drops out 

201 



Training the Church of the Future 



of the ranks of Christian Endeavor drops ont of this fel- 
lowship, and there is nothing to take its place. 

There is absolutely no other interdenominational and 
international Christian federation in the world for young- 
people, and nothing like it as yet for the older people of 
our churches. 

While we have been longing for the spiritual federation, 
and praying for it, and singing about it, it has come 
without observation, and is an actual fact.* 

Second. 

Christian Endeavor can and does promote an esprit de 
corps that is possible only because the movement is so 
widespread in the nations and denominations. 

The Standard Dictionary defines the above French 
phrase as a " spirit of common devotedness, sympathy, or 
support among the members of an association or body " ; 
and this is a most valuable asset of Christian Endeavor. 

It increases the value of every society to its own 
church. It affects for good every prayer-meeting. It 
may inspire every committee. It thrills every conven- 
tion. 

Moreover, this and the other wider aspects and results 
of Christian Eudeavor are so plainly providential that 
they can not wisely be neglected by any thinking Chris- 

* The impression is sometimes industriously circulated that as a 
federation of the young people of the churches, Christian Endeavor 
has failed, and that a new federation is needed. Let us see what 
denominations are in the Christian Endeavor federation already. 
Practically all the Presbyterians, Congregationalists, Disciples of 
Christ, Christians, Moravians, Cumberland Presbyterians, Reformed 
Presbyterians, Reformed Church of America, and the Reformed 
Church in the United States, the United Evangelical Association, 
Reformed Episcopal, Methodist Protestant, Primitive Methodist, 
Free Baptists, Mennonites, Church of God, Friends, African Metho- 
dist Episcopal, and African Methodist Episcopal Zion, large sections 
of the Baptist, Lutheran, United Presbyterian, and United Brethren 
churches, and smaller sections of the Protestant Episcopal and 
Methodist Episcopal churches. This in the United States alone; 
while in Canada and other countries our fellowship is even more in- 
clusive. Surely this is a goodly federation to have grown up virtu- 
ally in twenty years ! 

202 



Claim upon the Churches 



tian. They have not been built up with pains and toil 
by any man. They have all grown from a seed of God's 
planting. Is it not fair to say that he who opposes them 
seems to oppose one of God's methods of training and 
inspiring the young ? 

Third. 

Christian Endeavor stands peculiarly for Christian citi- 
zenship. 

As a movement it can do for this great cause, so dear to 
every patriot, what is utterly impossible for a local soci- 
ety or a purely denominational organization that has no 
affiliations with a world -movement. It can propose and 
project efforts, and bring things to pass, and hold inspir- 
ing mass-meetings that are impossible except where mil- 
lions of youth in many communions are banded together. 
For instance, the memorial in behalf of peace and inter- 
national arbitration, which received the distinguished 
approval of The Hague Peace Commissioners, and the 
" Civic Clubs," recently proposed for the discussion and 
study of municipal affairs, are two examples from many 
of what is possible only to a general movement and im- 
possible to a local society. 

Fourth. 

Christian Endeavor stands for Christian missions, and can 
do so in the most effective way because it exists in a 
hundred denominations and in fifty countries. The sense 
of brotherhood with a multitude of other young Endeav- 
orers of every nation and kindred and people and tongue 
beneath the sun, is necessary to the full quickening of 
missionary zeal of the largest, most catholic, and most 
Christ-like quality. The local society that withdraws 
from this fellowship must inevitably lose something of 
this quickening sense of enthusiasm for the redemption 
of the world. 

Fifth. 

Christian Endeavor has lately come to stand for the Chris- 
tian home, and will increasingly be identified with this 

203 



Training the Church of the Future 



thought. "Family Worship," '-Household Religion," 
"Filial Piety," will be written upon its banners. These 
are great words and greatly needed efforts, which can be 
projected and promoted only by a national and interna- 
tional movement. 

It is not likely to be shared in fully except by the soci- 
eties that are in the movement, 

Sixth. 

Christian Endeavor stands for the Quiet Sour of medita- 
tion and communion ivith God. It advocates it, furnishes 
helps for it, identifies itself with this thought in all its 
publications and conventions. Such an effort to embody 
and vivify in millions of hearts a great truth like this 
is possible only to a movement that is found in every 
church and every land. 

Seventh. 

The experiment of independence is not an untried one. 
First and last, during the last twenty years, the plan has 
been tried many times of withdrawing from the Chris- 
tian Endeavor fellowship and setting up an independent 
society, or a purely denominational society. 

Has there been any corresponding gain to compensate 
for the heavy losses? Are the prayer-meetings of the 
independent societies more helpful ; is their committee 
work more efficient ; is their loyalty more unquestioned ? 
I have never heard that th ; s was the case in a single in- 
stance. I have often heard of irreparable losses in these 
respects. 

Eighth. 

Here is a movement that has grown up from a tiny 
mustard- seed in the providence of God. 

It has not been built with ecclesiastical hammer and 
nails, or stuck together with the adhesive plaster of 
churchly authority. It has a natural, spontaneous, nec- 
essary growth from the seed. 

The seed flourishes in any garden-spot the world 
around where it is cared for. If it is not growing straight 

204 



A Quiet-Hour Catechism 



and comely, it can be primed and invigorated and 
trained. It can always be mended; it need never be 
ended. 

The church that gives up its society of Christian 
Eudeavor is giving up not a name, not a method, not 
a form of pledge merely. In all these things the So- 
ciety is flexible, and may be adapted to any church or 
denomination. 

Ninth. 

It is not simply giving up connection with a United 
Society or World's Union, but it is giving up a world- 
wide fellowship and its share in helping and being helped 
by tens of thousands of other societies and nearly four 
millions of other young people, to be more useful in oth- 
er churches, to be better citizens, better missionaries to 
others, better home-makers, better men and women. 

Are these things to be lightly treated and carelessly 
put one side % 

Not a few societies that have isolated themselves from 
the movement, or have been withdrawn from it by pas- 
tor or church, have come back into it with new apprecia- 
tion of its value. In the name of the Christian Endeavor 
hosts the world around, we cordially and heartily invite 
all young people's societies of similar aims and methods 
to join the ever-increasing ranks of Christian Endeavor, 
that we may have the blessing of their fellowship, and 
that they may share the inspiration, the fellowship, the 
zeal, the tried and prove methods of a world-movement. 



Appendix V 

A QUIET-HOUR CATECHISM 
By FRANCIS E CLARK, D.D. 

The following questions and answers will perhaps help 
some to a better understanding of the Quiet Hour. 

205 



Training the Church of the Future 



Question. — What is the Quiet Hour? 

Answer. — It is the time set apart each day for persoual 
communiou with God. 

Ques. — Why should we keep the Quiet Hour? 

Ans. — Because our souls need it. Because our work 
demands it, and the larger our work and the busier our 
lives, the more we need it. Because otherwise God is 
likely to get crowded out of our busy lives. Because 
Christ's example commends it. Because every eminent 
saint has practised such quiet communion. Because we 
should take time to talk with God, as well as for business ; 
school, or pleasure. Because we must listen to God be- 
fore we can do His will. Because it will give a new 
meaning to prayer, and make of the Bible a different 
book to us. Because all who have practised it faithfully 
tell us it has brought joy and sweetness into their lives, 
and power for service. Because they all unite in saying 
that when faithfully observed it makes life infinitely 
fuller and richer. 

Ques. — How should the Quiet Hour be kept? 

Ans. — Each one must decide for himself. Part of it 
will be spent in reading, with meditation, devotional 
passages of the Bible; part, perhaps, in reading some 
devotional book; part in petition for special blessing; 
but some part should also be spent in sitting quietly be- 
fore God, realizing, " practising " His presence ; opening 
the soul to Him ; listening to His voice. 

Ques. — Is there not danger that it will cultivate a mor- 
bid introspectiveness, or separate life into sacred and sec- 
ular periods ? 

Ans. — This is not the experience of those who have 
practised it. It has made all of life more wholesome and 
better worth living, and has brought the presence of God 
into every humble daily task. 

Ques. — Does the " Quiet Hour" mean a literal hour of 
sixty minutes'? 

Ans. — No, it means "at least fifteen minutes," better 
still, half an hour ; enough time genuinely to realize the 
presence of God, and quietly to commune with Him. 

206 



A Quiet-Hour Catechism 



We believe that fifteen minutes a day is the least time 
that should thus be given. 

Ques. — Must the Quiet Hour always be observed in the 
morning 1 

Ans. — No, the title " Quiet Hour" was deliberately 
chosen rather than the " Morning Watch " to give liberty 
in the time of its observance ; but we very strongly ad- 
vise the first morning hour immediately on rising and 
before breakfast. Busy men and women will find this 
almost the only time of which they can be sure. 

Ques. — Can others besides Endeavorers become "Com- 
rades of the Quiet Hour " % 

Ans. — Yes. Any one who will, young or old. We 
hope Endeavorers will get as many other Christians as 
possible to join them as " Comrades. " 

Ques. — Can one ever withdraw from membership'? 

Ans. — Yes, at any time, by sending word and ask- 
ing to have the name taken from the list of the Com- 
rades. 

Ques. — But supposing I should forget, or over-sleep, or 
be taken delirious, or for some reason I should fail to 
keep the Quiet Hour, should I not be perjuring myself if 
I sign this covenant % 

Ans. — No, because we promise to make it "the rule of 
our life, " and a " rule " allows reasonable and necessary 
exceptions. But when we once learn the blessedness of 
the Quiet Hour, we shall find that there will be very few 
exceptions to the rule. 

Ques. — Will subjects be given for meditation, and di- 
rections for making the most of the Quiet Hour ? 

Ans. — Yes; suggestions of this sort will be made, 
which can be followed or not as each one pleases. The 
Christian Endeavor World will take special pains to give 
many hints and helps for the Quiet Hour from the most 
eminent writers, like Murray, Meyer, Cuyler, Miller, 
Chapman, Moody, and many others. 

Ques. — How can laboring men, who have to be at their 
work at seven o'clock in the morning, and perhaps walk 
two miles to get to it, keep the Quiet Hour ? How can 

207 



Training the Church of the Future 



busy, tired mothers, who have little or no privacy, keep 
it? 

Ans. — I have the fullest sympathy with these classes. 
My own labors are exhausting, and often keep me up 
until midnight or later, and the morning nap is sweet ; 
but I have found the Quiet Hour invaluable, and I be- 
lieve that there are very few who can not, if they will, 
get this quiet fifteen minutes, and none who will not find 
vast profit in it. It will mean fifteen minutes less sleep, 
but ten times fifteen minutes of refreshment and physical, 
mental, and spiritual tonic. 

Ques.— What is the covenant of the Comrades of the 
Quiet Hour? 

Ans. — Trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ for strength, 1 
will make it the rule of my life to set apart at least fifteen 
minutes every day, if possible in the early morning, for quiet 
meditation and direct communion with God. 

Ques. — How can I become a Comrade of the Quiet 
Hour? 

Ans. — Send your name and address and the church to 
which you belong, with a stamp to cover postage, to 
Eev. Francis E. Clark, Tremont Temple, Boston, Mass. , 
and your name will be enrolled and a covenant card will 
be duly sent you to sign and keep. 

Will you not interest your friends in this most impor- 
tant movement, and send to the above address a list of 
those who desire to become " Comrades"? 



Appendix VI 

FACTS ABOUT THE TENTH LEGION OF THE 
UNITED SOCIETY OF CHRISTIAN ENDEAVOB 

From a Leaflet by John Willis Baer. 

Question. — "The Tenth Legion 7 ' — what is it? 

Answer. — An enrolment of Christians whose practise it 
is to give to God for His work not less than one-tenth of 
their income. 

208 



The Tenth Legion 



Ques. — Who gave it the name ? 

Ans. — The New York City Christian Endeavor Union 
originated this tithe-givers' leagne. 

Ques. — Where are the headquarters now ? 

Ans. — At the office of the United Society of Christian 
Endeavor, Tremont Temple, Boston, Mass. 

Ques. — How did it come to be adopted by the United 
Society of Christian Endeavor? 

Ans. — At the request of the New York Union. It 
never aspired to a national enrolment; and when the 
plan became known outside of New York, the demand for 
information became so extensive that the United Society, 
believing heartily in the "proportionate" giving to God, 
accepted the suggestion of W. L. Amerman, the origina- 
tor of the plan, and early in the year 1897 commenced to 
promote the "Tenth Legion. " 

Ques. — What is the motto of the Tenth Legion ? 

Ans. — "Bender unto God the things that are God's." 

Ques. — Are any members enrolled that do not give as 
much as one -tenth of their income'? 

Ans. — No. 

Ques. — How may we become enrolled as members of 
the Tenth Legion? 

Ans. — Send a two-cent stamp and make application to 
John Willis Baer, Tremont Temple, Boston. A hand- 
somely engraved certificate will then be mailed you. 

Ques. — Are there any dues or taxes'? 

Ans. — None whatever. 

Ques. — Is membership limited to Christian Endeavor- 
ed? 

Ans. — No. Any one that gives God the tithe may 
join. 

Ques.— Is not this idea of tithe-giving a narrow, legal, 
Jewish view of the whole question ? Should we not con- 
secrate the whole of our income rather than a small frac- 
tion? 

Ans. — Every true tithe-giver does consecrate the whole 
of his property, but he also specifically gives at least one- 
tenth for the spread of the kingdom of God, while the 
14 209 



Training the Church of the Future 



average gift of Christians for this purpose is not one- 
hundredth part of their income. This is a Christian 
vow, and is not a Jewish law simply because the Jews 
practised it. The Ten Commandments and the Sabbath 
belong to the Christian as well as to the Jew. 

Ques. — Are members that have for years given God the 
tithe eligible to membership, or is the Tenth Legion or- 
ganized for those that are beginners? 

Ans. — It is for all that would like to be enrolled. 

Ques. — What is the use of joining the Tenth Legion? 

Ans. — To give this movement for generous giving the 
inspiration of numbers, and to enable you to push tithe - 
giving more forcibly yourself. As one tithe-giver of 
long standing says: "I have never before openly urged 
the practise for fear of seeming egotistical, but now I 
can urge the Tenth Legion. " 

Ques. — Can one withdraw at any time? 

Ans. — Yes, and at the same time the certificate must 
be surrendered. 

Ques. — Are the names of the members published? 

Ans. — No. The enrolment is considered strictly confi- 
dential. 

Ques. — Who is to decide what shall constitute the tenth 
of one's income? 

Ans. — You yourself, with God, conscientiously. 

Ques. — Who decides how to spend the money ? 

Ans. — The giver himself, and this becomes one of his 
greatest joys. 

Ques. — Shall the net or the gross income be tithed ? 

Ans. — In the case of a salaried man, the gross income ; 
in the case of a business man, the net income, after busi- 
ness expenses are deducted. 

Ques. — What if one has no fixed income ? 

Ans. — Tithe whatever money comes to you. 

Ques. — What if one is in debt ? 

Ans. — Our debt to God takes precedence of our debt to 
man. The latter must be paid, of course, and a tithe- 
giver will usually have more wherewith to pay his debts 
than if he had not given the tithe. 

210 



The Tenth Legion 



Ques. — Is any part of the money to be given to the 
work of the United Society of Christian Endeavor? 

Ans. — Not one penny. The United Society asks noth- 
ing for itself, and does not even receive voluntary con- 
tributions. 

Ques. — Is it well to have a definite plan for spending 
the money? 

Ans. — If you reserve something for the unexpected 
calls, yes. At the beginning of every year decide on a 
schedule of gifts to the mission boards of your denomi- 
nation and to your church. 

Ques. — Briefly, why should I recommend others to 
join the Tenth Legion? 

Ans. — Because you received ten-tenths of your income 
from God, and should certainly return not less than one- 
tenth to His work. 

Because tithe -giving does not prevent your giving 
more, if you have it to give. 

Ques. — How may the claims of The Tenth Legion be 
brought before the Young People's society or the 
church ? 

Ans.— You may use the ballots sold by the United So- 
ciety of Christian Endeavor for the purpose of finding 
out the present status of your members in this matter. 
Price, postpaid, fifteen cents a hundred. Get some tithe - 
giver to make an address. Have repeated the illustrated 
address on the Tenth Legion, by Amos E. Wells, sold by 
the United Society for $1. 50 a hundred. Follow with 
a testimony meeting. Circulate the application blanks. 
Urge the matter personally. Appoint a Tenth-Legion 
committee to push the plan in all these ways. 

Ques. — Where can leaflets be had that advocate the 
giving of not less than one-tenth to God 1 

Ans. — Address Layman, 310 Ashland Avenue, Chica- 
go, 111., and Publishing Department, United Society of 
Christian Endeavor, Boston, Mass. ; also write to the 
missionary boards of your own denomination. Ask 
your pastor for the address of the latter. Send five 
cents with your request, to pay postage. 

211 



Training the Church of the Future 



Ques. — Where can application blanks be obtained? 

Ans. — Slips like the following may be had of Secre- 
tary Baer, Tremont Temple, Boston, Mass. Price, ten 
cents a hundred. 



"unto god the things that are god's" 



ENROLMENT BLANK. 

Please enrol my name in 

THE TENTH LEGION 

of the United Society of Christian Endeavor as a Christian 
whose practise it is to give Cod the tithe, and send me the certifi- 
cate of membership. 

Name 

Address 

Y.P.S.C.E.of Church 

To John Willis Baer, 

Tremont Temple, Boston, Mass. 

(Send a two-cent stamp ) 



If local or city union officers desire large quantities of 
this leaflet, they will be furnished for $1.50 a thousand, 
postpaid. 

Appendix VII 

THE MACEDONIAN PHALANX 

By AMOS R. WELLS. 

Ques. — What is the Macedonian Phalanx ? 
Ans. — It is an enrolment of those that give to the sup- 
port of individual missionaries and mission workers. 
Ques. — Can individuals join'? 
212 



The Macedonian Phalanx 



Ans. — Yes, if their individual gift is of the required 
amount. 

Ques. — Who else can join? 

Ans. — Any Christian Endeavor society whose gift ful- 
fils the conditions. 

Ques. — What kind of missionary worker must be sup- 
ported, in whole or part? 

A7is. — Any missionary on the home or foreign field, or 
a native preacher, teacher, Bible woman, or other Chris- 
tian worker, or a student preparing for Christian work, 
or some definite and distinct part of mission work, as 
a hospital, free hospital bed, mission boat-building, 
church -planting, supporting Sunday-schools, and the 
like. 

Ques. — How much money must be given? 

Ans. — At least twenty dollars a year. 

Ques. — Suppose the church is carrying on this work, 
and the individual or society contributes this amount to 
the church fund for the purpose? 

Ans. — That meets all requirements for membership. 

Ques. — Suppose the Christian Endeavor Society joins 
with the other societies of the same denomination for the 
same purpose, contributing at least twenty dollars? 

Ans. — Each society so doing has a right to membership 
in the Phalanx. 

Ques. — To whom are the contributions to be made ? 

Ans. — They are to be sent through the church to which 
the society or the individual belongs, and to the regular 
denominational missionary board. 

Ques. — How often is the gift to be made? 

Ans. — It is understood that the gift will be made once 
a year, and if for any reason the annual gift can not be 
made, the name should be withdrawn from membership. 

Ques. — To whom are applications for membership to 
be sent? 

Ans. — To John Willis Baer, general secretary of the 
United Society of Christian Endeavor, Tremont Temple, 
Boston, Mass. 

Ques. — What is sent to the new member? 
213 



Training the Church of the Future 



Ans. — A handsome lithographed certificate of mem- 
bership, suitable for framing. It may be hung np in the 
society room as an incentive to missionary interest. At 
the same time the name is recorded on the books of the 
United Society of Christian Endeavor, and all items of 
general interest in regard to the new members are re- 
ported to the Endeavorers at large in the columns of 
The Christian Endeavor World. 

Ques. — Is there any charge for enrolment? 

Ans. — None ; but ten cents is charged for the certifi- 
cate, simply to cover the cost and postage. 

Ques.— Are there any expenses connected with mem- 
bership ? 

Ans. — None whatever, no dues or fees, and no obliga- 
tions except those already defined, which relate to the 
annual gift. 

Ques. — What is the purpose of the Macedonian Pha- 
lanx? 

Ans. — To encourage a close connection between the 
giver and the missionary fields to which he is giving. It 
is believed that this is a decided stimulus to missionary 
zeal and generosity. 

Ques. — How can this connection be promoted and util- 
ized? 

Ans. — By means of correspondence, by study of the 
particular field, by frequent reports to the society con- 
cerning it, by printing upon the society topic cards, 
calendars, year-books, and the like, the name of the 
missionary or the work supported, by displaying it 
prominently in the prayer-meeting room, by often talk- 
ing over the work in the Christian Endeavor meeting, 
and praying for it. 

Ques. — Does this support of a single worker diminish 
interest in other workers, and other fields and mission 
boards ? 

Ans. — No; it has been proved conclusively by the ex- 
perience of many societies and churches that it does not. 

Ques. — Has this movement the support of the mission- 
ary boards? 

214 



The Civic Club 



Ans. — It has their cordial indorsement. Indeed, sev- 
eral of them are maintaining workers for the very 
purpose of furthering some such movement as this. 

Ques. — Who is to assign the worker to be supported % 

Ans. — Enter into correspondence with the mission 
board whose work you wish to aid, and they will assign 
you a worker and put you in communication with him or 
her. 

Ques. — What is hoped for from this movement ? 

Ans. — That it will make missions more real and vivid 
by personal contact with these men and women who are 
acting so nobly as our proxies, that it will increase our 
personal devotion to the cause, that it will enlarge our 
gifts greatly, add to the resources of the missionary 
boards and make their income more certain, render 
Christians more intelligent regarding the mission fields, 
make their prayers more fervent for the success of mis- 
sions, and in every way help toward the accomplishment 
of the Great Commission. 



Appendix VIII 

THE CHBISTIAN ENDEAVOB CIVIC CLUB 

By AMOS R, WELLS and FRANCIS E. CLARK. 

For a long while Christian Endeavor has stood for 
Christian citizenship. Much has been done by individ- 
ual societies and unions 5 but no general concreted plan has 
hitherto been proposed for making our abstract views on 
good citizenship concrete. 

As long ago as 1893, at the Montreal convention, it 
was proposed and unanimously agreed that Christian 
citizenship should be one of the departments of Christian 
Endeavor as a movement, and iD thousands of communi- 
ties the thought has quickened the political conscience 
of young men, aroused them to a sense of their civic 
duty, and promoted most important reforms. 

215 



Training the Church of the Future 



An Advance Step. 

But the time has come for a new and advance step 
along this line. 

The murder of a beloved President by the red hand of 
an anarchist, the big Tammany in New York City and 
the little Tammanies that are smaller only because the 
towns are smaller, the colossal corruption in Philadel 
phia— all these evils call for the timely appeal of Dr. 
Capen, the vigorous address of the trustees of the United 
Society, and the practical constitution for "Christian 
Endeavor Civic Clubs " outlined by Professor Wells, and 
printed in another part of this appendix. 

A Campaign of Information. 

The reason why corruption has been rampant in some 
of our cities is that the people have not been informed, 
have not taken pains to inform themselves of their own 
municipal affairs. How many of my readers know how 
they are governed ; are acquainted with their city char- 
ter; know about their city's school system, its poor- 
laws, its streets and sewers, the municipal platforms of 
the parties and their political machinery ? 

The Civic Clubs will give just this information. They 
afford a chance for study as well as for discussion. They 
can go to the root of the matter. They may conduct a 
campaign of information in regard to most important 
matters that young citizens can study. 

The Lyceum Idea. 

They will promote facility of public utterance and de- 
bate on the questions of the day. Dr. Capen says that 
young Irish -Americans are often better informed about 
measures of current politics, and better able to debate 
them, than young American -Americans, too many of 
whom are interested in everything but their own city or 
town. 

216 



The Civic Club 



The young Irish- Americans ought to have the influ- 
ence and the offices if they have political information 
and alertness in discussion. They will get them and 
keep them. 

The old-fashioned lyceum was a splendid practical 
school for debate and information for many a country 
boy. 

The C. E. C. C. (Christian Endeavor Civic Club) may 
bring back the palmy days of the old lyceum in country 
and city, and apply this greatly neglected force to the 
regeneration of our political life. 



Village Improvement. 

In village improvement the Civic Club may be most 
useful. There is not a village in the United States or 
Canada, beautiful as many of them are, that may not be 
improved by intelligent study of the situation and ener- 
getic action, consulting, of course, older friends and en- 
listing them in any proposed plans. 

Many villages already have Improvement Societies, 
which in every case, I believe, would rejoice in the 
interest and cooperation of a Civic Club of young 
people. 

In fact, the vistas of usefulness that open up before 
such a club are almost endless. A careful study of the 
proposed constitution printed in this appendix will reveal 
many of them, and a good manual of practical work is 
Professor Wells's little book entitled " Citizens in Train- 
ing. " 

Let me ask every reader to consider whether there is 
not room for a Civic Club in his local Christian Endeavor 
union, if not in his society. 

Count well the cost in time and energy, so that it may 
not be a short-lived failure, and then "go in to win" — 
to win a better nation, a better city, or a better village 
through the Christian Endeavor Civic Club. 

217 



Training the Church of the Future 



CONSTITUTION 

Proposed foe the Christian Endeavor Ciyio 
Clubs. 

Article I. — Name. 

This organization shall be called the Christian Endeav- 
or Civic Club, Number. .... (The number of the char- 
ter issued by the United Society of Christian Endeavor. 
If desired, the club may be called a Christian Endeavor 
Congress, following the organization and methods of our 
national Congress or legislatures, the members choosing 
imaginary constituencies, bringing in bills, presenting 
resolves, and conducting all the work of the organiza- 
tion on legislative models. ) 

Article II. — Object 

The object of the Christian Endeavor Civic Club shall 
be the promotion of a better citizenship, through the 
study of civic problems, through training in debate and 
parliamentary practise, and through such active partici- 
pation in public affairs as may be practicable and 
proper. 

Article 111. — Motto. 

The motto of the Civic Club shall be VirgiPs words, 
"The noblest motive is the public good." 

Article TV. — Officers. 

Its officers shall be a president, a vice-president, a 
secretary, and a treasurer, whose duties shall be those 
usually assigned to such officers. They shall be elected 
annually, at the first meeting in , one nomi- 
nation for each office being made through a nominating 
committee appointed by the club two weeks before the 
date of election. 

Article Y. — The Executive Committee. 

The general conduct of the club shall be in the hands 
of its officers, acting in conjunction with an executive 

218 



The Civic Club 



committee of five. This executive committee shall con- 
sist of Christian Endeavorers, and shall be the connect- 
ing link between the club and the Christian Endeavor 
union (or society, if the club is formed under the aus- 
pices of a single society). It shall report to the union 
at its business meetings, and it shall present to the club 
all candidates for membership, making an earnest en- 
deavor to obtain for the club all suitable persons. 

Article VI. — Membership. 

Membership in the club shall be open to all young 
men of good character who may be recommended by the 
executive committee and elected by the club. They shall 
become members on signing this constitution. 

Article VII. — Meetings. 

The club shall meet on the first and third Monday 
evenings of each month. (Of course any week-day eve- 
ning may be chosen, and the meetings may be held only 
once a month. The summer meetings may be omitted. ) 
The following order shall usually be followed: 

1. Opening prayer. 

2. Reading of the minutes. 

3. Unfinished business. 

4. Reports of committees. 

5. Kew business. 

6. Reports on current events, with discussion. 

7. Study of civics, or 

Address, followed by discussion, or 
Debate, or 

Report of committees of inquiry, followed by dis- 
cussion. 

8. Announcements. 

9. Adjournment. 

Article VIII. — Visitors. 

Members of the club may invite their gentleman 
friends to visit the club at any time. Occasional meet- 
ings shall be set apart as ladies' nights, when each mem- 

219 



Training the Church of the Future 



ber will be at liberty to invite his lady friends. By vote 
of the club, occasional public meetings may be held. 

Article IX. — Standing Committees. 

The following standing committees shall be elected, at 
the same time as the officers, in the same manner, and 
to serve for a year. Each shall consist of three persons, 
the one named first to serve as chairman. 

1. Program Committee. This committee shall arrange 
programs for the meetings, obtaining speakers, selecting 
subjects for debate, outlining courses of study, and plan- 
ning whatever additional features it can devise. All its 
proposals must be presented to the club, for suggestions 
and formal approval. 

2. Publicity Committee. It shall be the duty of this 
committee to make known, through the press and in 
other ways, the work of the club, publishing its conclu- 
sions, and seeking to arouse interest in its meetings 
through posters and other advertisements. 

3. Village Improvement Committee. This committee 
shall study the condition of the community, and shall 
make suggestions for the material and social welfare of 
the town, first submitting to the club all its proposals. 
(A large work is before this committee in many places 
beautifying the streets, establishing drinking-fountains, 
planting trees, founding town libraries, arranging lecture 
courses, and the like. Of course, ordinarily, their work 
can be done only by interesting in their plans the more 
powerful advocacy of older citizens. ) 

(Other committees may be added. ) 

Article X. — Committees of Inquiry. 

From time to time the club may appoint committees 
of inquiry, large or small as it chooses, whose duty it- 
will be to make special studies of the phase of civics 
assigned to them, presenting reports to the clnb as their 
work proceeds, and suggesting to the program committee 
speakers familiar with the subject given them to study, 

220 



The Civic Club 



and also topics for debate and discussion along the line 
of their inquiry. (For example, such committees might 
be formed to study and report on the public schools, the 
streets and roads, temperance laws, building laws, fire 
department, police department, public charities, prisons, 
courts, elections, party organization, caucuses, city and 
county organization, State legislature, post-offices, news- 
papers, railroads, water-supply, Sabbath -observance, 
asylums, public records, board of health, public library, 
taxes. Public officials and others most intimately ac- 
quainted with these themes should be invited to address 
the club upon them, replying at the close to any ques- 
tions the club may ask, — such officials, for example, as 
street commissioners, members of the school board, 
health officers, public register, selectman, assessor, 
councilman, postmaster, water commissioner, judge of 
election, prison warden, building inspector, public libra- 
rian. ) Conclusions regarding these topics may be formu- 
lated by the club and published. 

Article XI. — Civic Action. 

The club will not refrain from practical participation 
in public affairs, provided always it strictly refuses to 
take partizan action. For example, it may, for the 
guidance of its members, obtain information concerning 
the records of candidates, but it will pass no vote indors- 
ing any candidate. It may petition and work for the 
enactment of ordinances and statutes, but will not ally 
itself with any political party. 

Article XII. —Civic Studies. 

The club may engage in the study of civics, either 
through a text-book, under a leader, or through a course 
of lectures. The reading and discussion of books and 
articles on civic and patriotic themes shall form a por- 
tion of its work. This study may be carried on at home, 
and the results presented before the club in the form of 
essays, abstracts, talks, or discussions. 

221 



Training the Church of the Future 



Article XIII. —Current Events. 

It will be one purpose of the club to keep its members 
intelligent regarding the progress of the world's history. 
To that end, reporters from the leading nations and 
regions of the earth may be appointed, whose duty it 
will be to become thoroughly informed concerning cur- 
rent events in their respective fields, ready to report 
them at any meeting, and answer questions concerning 
them. These members may be called "Beporter for 
Germany/' "Beporter for the Southern States," "Be- 
porter for India," etc. 

Article XIY. — Amendment. 

This Constitution may be amended by a three-fourths 
vote of the members present at any meeting, provided 
notice of the proposed amendment has been given at a 
meeting of the club two weeks in advance. 

(This Constitution is proposed merely as an outline for 
the guidance of the clubs, who will form their own con- 
stitutions to meet the local needs and circumstances. 
Many of the minor points here included might well be 
relegated to a set of by-laws. It would be best to start 
with a constitution as simple as possible, letting its 
growth be a matter of experience. ) 



Appendix IX 

THE CHBISTIAN ENDEAVOB HOME CIBCLE 
By FRANCIS E. CLARK, D.D. 

The time has come, I believe, to make definite and 
more emphatic the advance step that was proposed three 
years ago at Nashville and emphasized again at the Cin- 
cinnati convention — the matter of Beligion in the Home, 
especially as centering about family worship. 

Family religion is a foundation-stone of all our relig- 
ious life in church and state, and family worship lies 

222 



The Home Circle 



near the foundation of all family religion. In building 
the family altar, religion builds itself up. 

Tho household prayers are not by any means the sum 
of family religion, or even its beginning ; still they are 
an expression of it — definite and genuine expression, 
which has sadly fallen into disuse, and which Christian 
Endeavor can most properly do its utmost to revive. 

Natural Effort foe Christian Endeavorers. 

It is not a forced and unnatural thing for Christian 
Endeavor to stand for family religion ; not a trick to add 
something new, but a natural, legitimate development of 
the Christian Endeavor movement. 

There are tens of thousands of families now where one 
or both of the heads of the household are or have been 
active members of the Society. If Christian Endeavor 
means anything to them, it means that they will carry 
their religion into their new-made homes. But there are 
others besides husbands and wives who control the des- 
tinies of the home. The children, the brothers and sis- 
ters, the unmarried aunts, all have responsibilities for 
establishing and maintaining home religion; and in 
many homes they can, if they will, have family prayers. 
It is as natural that Christian Endeavor should stand for 
Christian family life as for Christian citizenship for 
Christian missions. 

Who Seconds the Motion? 

Who will second this new effort of Christian Endeavor? 
I want to hear about ten thousand seconds; and, to 
make the matter very definite, I propose that those who 
will form themselves into A Home Circle of Chris- 
tian Endeavor join an enrolment that requires no offi- 
cers, meetings, or constitution, but a simple agreement 
like the one on the following page. 

This covenant, you will notice, is simple, short, and 
definite, and yet it leaves much to the individual, and 
does not tie him down with unnecessary rules. 

223 



Training the Church of the Future 



Christian Endeavor Home Circle. 

rpR TJST1NG in the Lord Jesus Christ for strength, we icill 
endeavor to maintain Family Worship in our home, and 
will strive to make it, through kindness, courtesy, and mutual 
helpfulness, a household of Ood. 

Signed 



A Flexible Proposal. 

The family can maintain morning worship or evening 
worship or both. Even those who are so scattered that 
they can come together for household prayer only once 
a week can enter this Home Circle, tho it is under- 
stood that daily family prayer is generally meant. 

The exercise may be longer or shorter. It may take 
three minutes or fifteen. The father may conduct it 
alone, or father and mother and all the children may 
join in it, and this would often be better still. 

The prayers may be extemporaneous or written. In 
fact, there is the utmost variety possible, but at the same 
time there is this strong bond of unity that as households 
we who are enrolled shall bow reverently before our 
Father in heaven and crave His blessing on our home 
through Jesus Christ our Lord. 

Few earnest Christian Endeavorers need be left out of 
this circle. If one is only in a subordinate position in 
the home, the idea can be carried out. If parents are 
indifferent, gather the little brothers and sisters for wor- 
ship. At least once a week in almost every home there 
could be family Bible -reading and prayer if only one 
member of the household were inclined to conduct it. 

The Vast Possibilities of this Effort. 

The possibilities for good of this effort are almost un- 
bounded. It may do not a little toward stemming the 

224 



The Home Circle 



tide of irreligion in the family. It may help to sweeten 
and refine family life for generations to come. It may 
increase the love of parents and children and brothers 
and sisters. It may help to establish in many house- 
holds reverence for divine things, familiarity with the 
Word of God, and devotion to the highest ideals. 

It may result in raising up ministers of the Gospel, 
and missionaries, and Christian workers whose lips were 
first touched with a live coal from off the family altar. 

All these blessed results and many more are more than 
possible, and are certain to result from a wide revival 
of interest in and practise of household religion. For 
those who can not at first trust themselves to extempo- 
raneous prayer in the family circle, there are various 
manuals of devotion. 

Set an Example by Enroling Your Own Name. 

Let all who wish to join the Christian Endeavor Some 
Circle send in their names at once. Even if for many 
years you have practised family worship, send in your 
names for the benefit of others who may be led by your 
example to begin. Let the theme be considered in Chris- 
tian Endeavor conventions and union meetings, and let 
all who believe in the plan try to induce others to enrol. 
No obligations are assumed beyond the very simple ones 
involved in the covenant printed above. 

Cards containing the covenant, with blank spaces for 
all members of the family to sign, will be forwarded on 
receipt of a stamp for postage, and engraved certificates 
suitable for framing will soon be furnished for ten cents, 
which will not more than cover the cost. 

Fellow Endeavorers and Christian friends, let us heart- 
ily enter into this plan, which may bring such untold 
blessings to our individual life, our home life, our na- 
tional life; and let us take for our motto, "As for me and 
my house, we will serve the Lord. " 



225 



BY THE SAME AUTHOR 



Young People's 

Prayer - Meetings 

HOW TO CONDUCT THEM 



A BOOK FOR SOCIETIES OF CHRISTIAN ENDEAVOR 

AND FOR ALL OTHER ORGANIZATIONS FOR 

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHRISTIAN 

CHARACTER OF YOUNG CONVERTS 

Valuable manuals concerning the conduct of the general 
prayer-meeting are numerous, but comparatively little has been 
written regarding its smaller brother — the " Young People's Prayer- 
meeting," The recent rapid growth of religious organizations for 
Young People make such a work as this very desirable and valuable. 
These chapters are the outgrowth of experience and personal effort. 
The plans suggested have all been successfully tried. The author 
has given the results of a very wide and long experience, and is, 
therefore, first of all, practical in his suggestions. The topics 
given have been selected with care from thousands of lists prepared 
by or for young people. The book is one of great importance in 
the conduct of the Young People's Meetings. Pastors would do 
well to secure the volume, if for no other purpose than to loan or 
give it to those in whose behalf the meetings are held. 



"This is a good book, and contains many valuable suggestions in regard to 
the best method of conducting prayer-meetings, especially for young people." — 
Methodist Recorder, Pittsburg. 

" It it a capital book. Every pastor who reads it will find in it some hints 
of decided value. The topics are treated in a sensible and altogether practical 
manner. We heartily commend the book not to pastors alone, but to all who 
are interested in this matter." — The Advance, Chicago. 

"It is an unusual combination of Christian common sense, with a broad and 
also a minute knowledge of the needs, desires, tasts, and feelings of young people. 
The training of young converts, and the making of them before they are 
trained, the place and work of the young people's meeting, the best methods of 
conducting it, and its relation to the development and power of the Church — 
these, under various heads, are considered fully and wisely. . . . We com- 
mend it heartily. It is especially indispensable." — The Congregationalist, 
Boston. 

"It is full of helpful suggestions in regard to the training and education of 
young Christians, and the conduct of young people's meetings. The chapters 
devoted to an account of the Society of Christian Endeavor will repay perusal. 
We take pleasure in recommending the book to all Christians." — Christian 
Advocate, Buffalo. 

"This is an excellent manual. , , . The teachings of this volume 
upon the training of young converts, the importance of an early formed habit of 
working in social services, and the best modes of awakening their interest in them, 
are every way excellent, and full of valuable suggestions. The large collection of 
prayer-meeting topics, also, will be found very serviceable," — Zion's Herald, 
Boston, 

" The author is an authority upon the question he has undertaken to discuss 
Few men in this country or elsewhere have given the subject of the religious 
culture of young people more earnest and solicitous attention. The book is full of 
hints that can easily be reduced to practise. And this is why the book will prove 
valuable." — Michigan Christian Advocate, Detroit. 

Cloth, i2mo, 167 pp. Price, 75 cents, post-free. 



FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY 

30 Lafayette Place, New York 



Mar.e ,1002, 



MAR 5 1902 



1 tOPY DEL, TO CAT. DIV. 
(MR. 5 1902 



